He won the election, but he is not making any progress with the coalition negotiations: Now another party has declared that it does not want to govern with Geert Wilders. Now there could be new elections.
In the Netherlands, right-wing populist Geert Wilders’ efforts to form the future government are on the verge of collapse. The NSC party announced on Tuesday that it would end explorations of cooperation. In a letter to his party colleagues, NSC chairman Pieter Omtzigt referred to the financial prospects of the future government and stated: “Under no circumstances do we want to make promises that we know are empty.”
This means that Wilders, who has been negotiating the formation of a coalition with the NSC, the VVD party and the farmers’ protest party BBB since the end of November, has suffered a serious setback. Wilders said he was “incredibly disappointed” with the NSC decision. “The country wants this coalition (…) I don’t understand it at all.” Wilder’s freedom party PVV won the election in November and became the strongest force in parliament with around a quarter of the votes.
Geert Wilders’ second failure in coalition negotiations
Omtzigt stated in his letter that he would be willing to support a minority government. This could consist of the three parties that are still in coalition negotiations. If the parties do not agree to form a coalition, new elections will most likely be held.
The head of the negotiations, Ronald Plasterk, is due to inform parliament next week about the status of the talks. Forming a government in the Netherlands traditionally takes a lot of time. The talks after the last election in 2021 lasted a record 299 days.
In the Netherlands, Wilders’ first attempt to form the new government in The Hague had already failed at the end of November. Gom van Strien, who was commissioned by Wilders to conduct the investigations, unexpectedly resigned from his position following corruption allegations.
Wilders, who has described former US President Donald Trump and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban as role models, announced during the election campaign that he would stop all immigration, cut Dutch payments to the European Union and allow new members such as the Ukraine to prevent. He also rejects Islam across the board and does not want to continue supplying arms to Ukraine.
Source: Stern
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