Jetten sees ‘castles in the air on quicksand’ in coalition agreement

PVV leader Geert Wilders assumes that the asylum package he has agreed with VVD, NSC and BBB, ‘the strictest ever in the Netherlands’, will actually lead to a lower influx. ‘If this doesn’t help, then nothing helps’, he thinks.

Wilders assumes that the proposed measures will stand up in court and in Brussels. He does not want to say how much he expects the influx to decrease as a result of this ‘enormous asylum package’. “I’m not going to get hung up on numbers.”

The PVV leader is also pleased that the plans include ‘on balance a reduction in the burden’. This will be noticed by middle-income workers in particular. The parties also allocate money to help people who are in financial difficulty.

Although the agreement of PVV, VVD, NSC and BBB contains ‘a number of things that we think are good’, CDA leader Henri Bontenbal ‘very much lacks vision and leadership’. ‘And there is a great lack of community spirit in that agreement. So I think that’s a real shame.’

For example, Bontenbal denounces the fact that the four parties ‘find it necessary to cut back on social service, or give young people a chance to dedicate themselves to society after their secondary school years. Symptomatic of that movement towards the self. And not to the we’, said the CDA leader.

The fact that the upcoming cabinet will continue to reform the labour market and focus on public housing is a good thing, Bontenbal believes. His party is also pleased with the position of the four parties when it comes to Defence, NATO and support for Ukraine.

He calls the way in which the future coalition partners say they want to solve the asylum problem ‘wishful thinking’ and ‘not realistic’.

JA21 party chairman Joost Eerdmans is ‘positive about necessary plans for asylum, migration, climate/energy and the middle class’, he says on X about the provisional coalition agreement. However, the party is concerned about new announced tax increases, for example on flies and plastic.

JA21 sees itself as a ‘watchdog for the right-wing voter’ in the coming period. ‘There is quite a bit to check whether this is really all going to work and whether the things they want are going to work’, Eerdmans said in Good Morning Netherlands about the parties PVV, VVD, NSC and BBB.

FNV sees the outline agreement of PVV, NSC, VVD and BBB as a ‘direct attack’ on the trade union movement, the government and solidarity. The largest trade union in the Netherlands is very displeased about proposed cuts in the civil service and the reversal of the increase in the minimum wage. FNV chairman Tuur Elzinga expects the union to clash hard with the new cabinet in the coming years.

‘We had expected that the public sector and employees would be taken to task, but this goes beyond all limits,’ says Elzinga.

“The announced zero line for civil servants and cuts in unemployment benefits and other social security are a direct attack on the trade union movement,” he continues. ‘There is no need for this, the public finances are perfectly healthy. We will prepare ourselves for a tough fight against these unholy plans.”