The Netherlands far-right PVV Freedom Party leader Geert Wilders speaks to the media representatives following the European Parliament elections provisional results in The Hague on June 6, 2024.
Emiel Muijderman | Afp | Getty Images
The Dutch government collapsed on Tuesday after disagreements over immigration proposals led to far-right leader Geert Wilders withdrawing his party from the ruling coalition.
Wilders said in a CNBC-translated post on the X social media platform that his Party for Freedom (PVV) party would be departing over the alliance’s lack of support for their asylum proposal
The PVV won a landslide victory in the Netherlands’ general election in 2023, knocking former Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s party off the top spot. Despite the victory, the country’s four major parties chose the former head of the Netherlands’ intelligence service, Dick Schoof, as prime minister.
Wilders had on Sunday warned his party could leave the coalition.
“Let me be crystal clear. If the majority of our proposals from the ten-point asylum plan are not adopted by the coalition (and thus added to the Main Lines Agreement) and implemented by the cabinet as soon as possible, then the PVV will withdraw from this coalition,” he said in a post on X over the weekend, according to a Google translation.
Last week the PVV put forward a 10-point plan to reduce immigration which included a call to halt asylum and temporarily stop the reunification of families for all asylum seekers who have been granted refugee status.
The leaders of the other coalition parties accused Wilders of putting his own interests ahead of the needs of the country. “He chooses his own ego and his own interests,” Dilan Yesilgoz-Zegerius, leader of Rutte’s former party, the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy, told Dutch broadcaster NOS in Google-translated comments.
“I am astonished. He is throwing away the chance of a right-wing policy. This is super irresponsible,” she said.
The Farmer-Citizen Movement (BBB) party said in a statement that Wilders had single-handedly pulled the plug on the government. “Governing the country is something different than threatening on social media,” said Caroline van der Plas, leader of the BBB.
“This is completely irresponsible, reckless and incomprehensible for anyone who hoped for change.”
This is a breaking news story. Please refresh for updates.
