Talks exploring the feasibility of a right-wing coalition government have hit what far-right leader Geert Wilders has described as “a serious problem” over the distribution of immigrants around the Netherlands – an aspect of the same issue that brought down Mark Rutte’s coalition last July.
Immigration is the single most contentious issue being discussed by the four parties of the right – Mr Wilders’s Freedom Party, the centre-right VVD, the farmer-citizen party BBB, and New Social Contract. They have so far failed to reached a consensus.
The issue has been thrown into further disarray following a decision by the VVD grouping in the Dutch parliament’s upper house, the Senate, to support new legislation that would force all of the country’s 342 local authorities to accept an equitable share of refugees.
According to recent research, 162 of those authorities, including some of the richest in the country, have done nothing to provide either permanent or temporary accommodation for refugees over the last 12 years.
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The VVD senators said they decided to support the legislation – without reference to party leader, Dilan Yesilgöz, who is taking part in the coalition talks – because they felt they could not in conscience leave those tackling inadequate accommodation “in the lurch”.
“This legislation will not solve all the problems,” said VVD senator Marian Kaljouw. “But we could not turn our backs on the crisis facing local mayors, the refugee settlement agency or Ter Apel refugee arrival centre. We feel obliged to act.”
The country’s main refugee reception centre in Ter Apel, in the north, became a byword for the height of the crisis in summer 2022 when a three-month-old baby died there in unsanitary conditions described by Médecins Sans Frontières as “inhuman”.
Mr Wilders has always opposed forcing local authorities to accept their share of refugees because it puts binding pressure on authorities to accept immigrants – whereas restricting all immigration is an article of faith for his followers.
“We have a big problem,” he acknowledged on Thursday at talks in The Hague from the privacy of a country house last week.
“I will continue to talk but this is a serious issue for my party and must be resolved.”
Mr Wilders won a solid victory in the November election, with 37 seats in the 150-seat parliament, but the support of the VVD remains essential – probably from the opposition benches – if he is to become the country’s first far-right prime minister.
On the fringes of the talks, the parties of the left – which will have an opportunity to form a government if the current negotiations collapse – are restless.
“We’re being ignored,” claimed Frans Timmermans, leader of the Labour-Green-Left alliance, criticising the “sherpa” at the talks, Roland Plasterk, for providing inadequate inside information.
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