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White smoke for a Dutch government after almost six months of negotiations. The news was announced by Geert Wilders, the controversial anti-Islam leader of the far-right PVV party, who emerged a clear winner in the November 22 elections, but who however will not be prime minister. “We have an agreement between the negotiators – declared Wilders -, but the parties will discuss it further, so there could be adjustments and changes”»
The new executive, already considered the most to the right in decades of Dutch history, will include, in addition to the PVV, three formations: the liberal-conservative VVD Party of outgoing Prime Minister Mark Rutte, now led by Dylan Yesilgözw, the New Social Contract (NSC), newborn centrist movement founded by Pieter Omtzigt, and the BBB, Caroline van der Plas’s Citizen Farmers’ Movement, which hit the headlines months before the tractor protests spread across half of Europe.
The four parties will be able to count on a solid majority, 88 seats out of 150 in the Dutch Lower House, but the stability of the coalition will have to be verified, given the differences that have already emerged during the negotiations and the distrust towards a party like the PVV which, except for an experience of external support for the first Rutte government, he has always been kept on the margins of political power.
A further shift to the right compared to the policies of the last Rutte government is almost certain, especially regarding migrants and asylum seekers, even if the details of the program are not yet known. A source told broadcaster RTL that the parties had decided to halve the number of workers allowed into the Netherlands, although it was not clear how this would reconcile with the freedom of movement guaranteed within the European Union.
Sticking to the program, during the election campaign Wilders had focused heavily on the cost of living and healthcare, promising increases in spending and a lowering of the retirement age. But budget constraints make other parties unlikely to support these plans.
