Faber will be asylum minister, parties agree
after crisis talks
June 14,
2024
https://www.dutchnews.nl/2024/06/faber-will-be-asylum-minister-parties-agree-after-crisis-talks/
A far-right
MP who has been nominated for the role of minister of asylum and migration in
the new Dutch cabinet will remain on the list of potential members despite
questions about her suitability, chief cabinet negotiator Richard van Zwol told
reporters on Friday evening.
PVV
parliamentarian Marjolein Faber was Geert Wilders’ second choice for the job
after his first nominee, Israeli-born Gidi Markusower, failed to get through
the security service screening.
On Friday
morning, VVD leader Dilan Yesilgöz said that she had doubts about Faber’s nomination, given her previous public
comments and her “tone and attitude”.
That
statement led to crisis talks between the four party leader, Van Zwol and the
next prime minister Dick Schoof late on Friday afternoon.
Faber is
known as a hardliner on asylum, refused to concede she was wrong about the
ethnicity of a stabbing suspect, and has called her colleagues in provincial
government “fake”.
Faber said
in a social media post that she “understood” the commotion about some of her
previous comments, and emphasised that as minister she would abide by the
coalition agreement and respect the rule of law.
After the
meeting, Van Zwol told reporters political parties “always” have comments about
other nominees and said the four party leaders had taken the time to go through
the case thoroughly.
Faber had
been properly vetted and there were no obstacles to her candidacy, Van Zwol
said.
NOS
reporter Albert Bos said that the VVD had not dared press on with its protest
but had delivered a warning shot to both Wilders and Faber. The whole affair is
a “sign of how the parties relate to each other and the underlying confidence,”
he said. “And the real job has yet to begin.”
Opposition
Opposition
MPs have also been questioning the VVD and NSC’s acceptance of Markuszower and
Reinette Klever, put forward by the PVV as aid minister when she called for the
department to be closed down. Klever is also a founder of far-right broadcaster
ON which has been fined for spreading fake news.
Frans
Timmermans, leader of the GroenLinks-PvdA alliance, said on social media that
Wilders had made “blunder after blunder”.
“And time
and time again, the silence from the VVD and NSC is deafening,” he said. “Embarrassed, or is this the new governance culture?”
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário