EuropeAnalysis

Dutch coalition agreement puts Wilders on course for confrontation with Brussels over migration

Tensions between parties over failure to name a prime minister to replace Mark Rutte

Party leaders of the Netherlands' new coalition: Geert Wilders (PVV), Dilan Yesilgoz (VVD), Caroline van der Plas (BBB) and Pieter Omtzigt (NSC). Photograph: Koen Van Weel/ANP/AFP via Getty Images

Peter Cluskey's face
Peter Cluskey in The Hague
Fri May 17 2024 - 14:32

The most notable aspects of the 26-page agreement for the new right-wing Dutch coalition, apart from tensions over the choice of prime minister, are the tender policy points where Geert Wilders plans to make trouble for the European Union: immigration and climate change.

After six months of considerable scepticism that Wilders, not known for keeping his extreme opinions to himself, could endure such long-running negotiations, his doubters were proved wrong on Wednesday.

Having gradually divested himself during those talks of the more unpalatable demands that led him to a solid victory in November’s general election – closed borders, a ban on the Koran, abandoning the EU, and an end to arms shipments to Ukraine – a deal was finally done.

Wilders’s Freedom Party became the largest in a new coalition with the centre right VVD, where Dilan Yesilgoz has succeeded Mark Rutte as leader; New Social Contract, led by campaigning MP Pieter Omtzigt, and the farmer-citizen party, BBB, led by Caroline van der Plas.

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It doesn’t quite get Wilders to where he believes he ought to be on the basis of the figures after November’s win: in the prime minister’s office.

On the other hand, it gets his Freedom Party into government as the largest of four coalition parties, with by far the most experienced of the four leaders. That’s a lot of leverage.

Some commentators believe Wilders the cartoon extremist has been declawed by having to subject himself to a series of very public compromises designed to drag him, lips pursed, into the political mainstream.

However, perusal of the coalition agreement with its rousing title, Hope, Courage, Pride, shows Wilders at his persuasive best, identifying areas of common ground popular with the electorate – and influencing his new friends.

The new government will be a paragon internationally, making it legally binding for the first time to spend 2 per cent of GDP on defence in line with Nato requirements – a European failing frequently slated by Donald Trump during his presidency.

As regards Ukraine, not alone has Wilders compromised on his belief that arms shipments to Kyiv should end, but the agreement declares unequivocally: “The Netherlands continues to support Ukraine politically, militarily, financially and morally against Russian aggression.”

[ Netherlands to have most conservative ruling coalition in decades ]

Domestically, it plans 100,000 new houses a year, 30 per cent of them social rentals. There are also plans to cap property taxes, to cut healthcare deductibles, to make childcare significantly more affordable and to increase social security.

On arguably the two most contentious issues of the times, however, immigration and climate change, the new coalition is setting the Netherlands up for a gloves-off clash with Brussels even before it has taken office.

On immigration – the issue that torpedoed the Rutte coalition – it says it will implement “the strictest asylum regime” ever by a Dutch government.

“An opt-out clause for European asylum and migration policies will be submitted as soon as possible to the European Commission”, the agreement says, to universal surprise.

The commission, however, is not playing.

“We have a new pact on migration and asylum, voted upon and confirmed, that must therefore be applied,” it snapped back on Thursday.

The news for Brussels is no better when it comes to the outgoing government’s plans to halve CO2 emissions by 2030 by significantly reducing the national livestock herd through the compulsory purchase of 11,200 farms – plans that brought furious farmers on to the barricades.

There will now be no compulsory buyouts. The coalition is bringing back low-excise duty red diesel for farmers, which was scrapped in 2013. And for good measure, speed limits are returning to 130km/h, having been reduced to help tackle nitrogen emissions.

With or without an agreed prime minister, The Hague, it seems, is no longer in EU directive-receiving mode.

Instead, the new coalition of the right will “do everything possible” to “change EU directives” that no longer suit. Wherever did it learn that?

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