Europe
Geert
Wilders threatens to pull party out of Dutch government over immigration
reforms
Freedom
Party minister wants to enact plan to cut €3.5 billion from the immigration and
asylum budget
Peter
Cluskey in The Hague
Tue May 27
2025 - 17:39
Geert
Wilders has said he will pull his far-right Freedom Party out of the
Netherlands’ 10-month-old right-wing coalition government unless his political
partners agree “within weeks” to much tougher restrictions on immigration.
Speaking at
a press conference to announce a 10-point proposal to hold the coalition
together, Mr Wilders said: “We’ve made enough concessions. If nothing changes,
or not enough, we’ll be gone.”
After a
general election in November 2023, the Freedom Party was returned as the
country’s largest party, with 37 seats in the 150-seat parliament.
Last July,
Mr Wilders agreed a four-party deal with the centre-right VVD, the fledgling
farmers’ party BBB, and the progressive New Social Contract, whose founder
Pieter Omtzigt has since left politics with “burnout”.
In an
unusual decision, Mr Wilders and the other party leaders agreed not to compete
for the job of prime minister or to take ministerial posts, but to sit as MPs
only. Dick Schoof, former head of the country’s security service, agreed to
become premier.
In an
environment in which the country’s immigration services could not cope with the
numbers of people arriving, the new government’s headline promise was to
introduce “the toughest immigration regime in the Netherlands’ history”.
However, the
coalition has been riven by infighting about reforms that would allow Freedom
Party asylum minister, Marjolein Faber, to cut €3.5 billion from the
immigration and asylum budget, as agreed by the parties in September.
Ms Faber’s
three reform drafts were each roundly criticised by the council of state, the
government’s legal adviser.
A proposal
to create a two-tier immigration system, separating those fleeing war zones
from others, was rejected by the justice ministry and separately by the
immigration service, IND.
From next
year the Netherlands will be obliged to implement the EU Asylum and Migration
Pact, which will inevitably lead to tensions with Brussels.
In his
10-point plan, Mr Wilders says he wants EU country quotas for asylum seekers
suspended immediately. He wants the Dutch army to “secure” and patrol its
borders.
In addition,
all Syrian refugees should be sent home, he says. Refugees already granted
visas should be “evicted” from reception centres, even without alternative
accommodation in a country with an acute housing shortage.
In 2012, Mr
Wilders withdrew his support from the opposition benches for Mark Rutte’s first
VVD-led coalition after 558 days, permanently damaging trust between the two
leaders.
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Peter
Cluskey
Peter
Cluskey is a journalist and broadcaster based in The Hague, where he covers
Dutch news and politics plus the work of organisations such as the
International Criminal Court
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