Netherlands

Dutch government collapse - a train crash in slow motion

Less than a year after its formation, the Dutch government collapsed on Tuesday after far-right party leader Geert Wilders withdrew his party PVV and all of his ministers from the ruling coalition. The withdrawal leaves the government without a majority, leading Prime Minister Dick Schoof to step down and resign his entire cabinet.

The coalition was uneasy from the start and lurched from crisis to crisis. With three out of four coalition parties new to government, non-affiliated civil servant Dick Schoof as prime minister and a coalition agreement that can best be described as a hodgepodge of campaign promises, there was a general expectation that the cabinet would not last long. And indeed, there was friction and instability from day one. Geert Wilders, the far-right leader of the Freedom Party (PVV), constantly criticised the work of his own government and the tensions between the other parties were rife.  

Wilders escalated with ten-point migration plan

Although the fall of the government was seen as a matter of time, the timing still caught many by surprise. After nearly a year of crisis after crisis, Geert Wilders gave an unexpected press conference on Monday 26 May to present a ten-point migration plan. This plan included several far-reaching measures to curb migration, including the deployment of the army to protect land borders, stopping all family reunifications of asylum seekers and a complete freeze on new asylum applications. The other coalition parties in the four-party coalition  ̶  the liberal People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD), the populist Farmer-Citizens Movement (BBB) and the renegade christian democratic New Social Contract (NSC)  ̶  were presented with an ultimatum: sign the plan or Wilders would pull the plug.

The additional migration measures initially received a lukewarm reception. Coalition partners pointed out that several policies were already included in the coalition agreement and called on the Minister of Asylum and Migration, Marjolein Faber (PVV), to come up with legislation to implement them. Many other proposals had been tabled during the coalition talks, but were dismissed because of legal concerns.

Without much of a discussion, the matter came to a climax on Tuesday morning. Wilders gathered the party leaders of the four coalition partners for a very brief discussion and informed them that he would leave the coalition. A few moments later, he posted the same message on X before informing “party-less” Prime Minister Schoof about his resignation.  

Coalition shocked

Shocked by the speed of Wilders’ actions, the three remaining coalition partners reacted furiously, calling the move irresponsible (BBB), incomprehensible (NSC), and selfish (VVD). Despite the crisis mood, the three party leaders saw enough potential to find solutions within the existing coalition agreement and accused him of engineering a self-imposed crisis. VVD party leader Dilan Yesilgöz reacted that the government’s collapse “was not about migration” and accused the PVV of walking away from its responsibility. This could, however, not have come as a complete surprise, given that Geert Wilders did exactly the same during a short-lived coalition government with VVD and the Christian Democrats in 2012, leading then-prime minister Mark Rutte to call Wilders a political runaway.

Opposition: told you so

For the opposition, the fall of the government was less of a shock. With plenty of issues to solve, the cabinet was characterised by infighting, instability and incompetence. Initially setting out to address the housing crisis, the nitrogen emissions crisis, and to implement the strictest asylum policy to date, the government failed to deliver any concrete legislation. Tellingly, its most notable success was a fireworks ban that was passed in April, with two coalition parties  ̶  PVV and BBB  ̶  voting against.

“If it had not happened today, it would have happened in the next few weeks,” commented Rob Jetten, the party leader of social liberal D66, on public TV. Together with several other opposition leaders, he had warned for the unfeasible coalition agreement, which was made of "air castles built on financial quicksand".

Political commentator Mark Thiessen suggested that Wilders would have even preferred to let the government fall on migration issues even earlier, and definitely wanted to avoid the more likely scenario that it would fall in the autumn over financial differences. This would have been very unattractive for the PVV.

What is next?

Dick Schoof’s government will now continue governing in a caretake capacity, which means that it can only take care of day-to-day affairs and cannot table new legislation. In a way, that means that not much changes in the immediate future. The coalition has never been fit to draft laws so the remaining ministers can seamlessly transition into their caretaker role. However, with several urgent challenges to address, there is a need for a new government soon. 

One particular problem will be that when the Netherlands hosts the NATO summit in The Hague at the end of June. There will be pressure to agree on an increase in defence spending up to 5% of GDP, but without a parliamentary majority, VVD defence minister Ruben Brekelmans will find it hard to find a mandate to do so.

New elections are expected now, given that a new coalition is unrealistic with the previous election result. The Dutch press reports that these will likely take place in October earliest, which means another prolonged period of stagnation. Forming a government can take several months and in the most positive scenario, there would be a government by the end of the year.

About two-thirds of PVV voters appear to support Wilders‘ course of action, but the other third is not so sure and detects more than a whiff of egotism. Certainly, there is very little that the PVV can show of having achieved. Even the substantial drop in asylum applications has not been due to government policies but to a massive drop in Syrians applying for asylum following the fall of the Assad regime, which has led to a fall in asylum requests across Europe.

Recent polls show that PVV lost about a third of its electoral support and would no longer be the biggest party. Only VVD would have a modest gain, and the other two coalition partners, the BBB and NSC, whose leader resigned after suffering a persistent burnout, would be nearly annihilated. The opposition Labour/Green coalition remained stable, while D66 would stand to make gains.

Although yet another political experiment of governing with a far-right party has now come to an end, the public debate will, in the meantime, probably still be hijacked by the topic of migration. It remains to be seen if the liberal parties in the Netherlands can push the debate beyond this issue and take away the political oxygen for Wilders and the likes. But for now, he is once again driving the discussion.