Dutch PM steps down after far-right PVV exits

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Netherlands Prime Minister Dick Schoof stepped down on Tuesday after serving as national leader for 11 months.

He will continue as caretaker prime minister, setting the stage for a snap election.

The resignation came hours after Geert Wilders, a politician from the far-right Party for Freedom, or PVV, which was part of the ruling coalition, withdrew his support for the government over a dispute about asylum and immigration policy.

Last week, Wilders proposed a 10-point plan with key measures including using the military to guard land borders and turning away all asylum-seekers. He emphasized that, without a toughening up of the nation's migration policy, the PVV would be "out of the Cabinet".

"In recent months, the Cabinet has worked hard on the implementation of the government program. But if one party lacks the will to continue with this, you cannot continue together." Schoof wrote on his official X account. "... with the departure of the PVV, there is insufficient support in the House of Representatives for this Cabinet. This means that I will go to the King immediately afterwards to offer the resignation of the PVV ministers. The other ministers will continue as caretaker ministers."

Yu Wenjie, a professor of European studies at Nanjing University, said the lack of the far-right PVV in Netherlands politics could have been predicted.

"Far-right parties always master the trick of making use of people's sentiment — for example, to echo people's complaints about immigrants, they call for radical means to close the border, which can help them to win elections sometimes," he told China Daily. "But their radical calls will not appeal to the public in the long run, so it's uncommon for far-right parties to stay in the ruling position for long."

For Yu, the exit of the PVV from government may not spell disaster for Schoof because voters may have regained rationality and not allow the PVV to perform as well as it did in the November 2023 election.

"That not only applies to the Netherlands, but also to Europe and other regions where right-wing parties have risen," Yu said.

When the Netherlands' current coalition government was formed in the middle of 2024, the PVV, while the largest single party in the parliament, failed to get support from any other parties to form a coalition that would be led by Wilders.

Instead, the coalition that ended up being formed was led by Schoof, who stressed repeatedly that he had been appointed by all four parties involved in the coalition and avoided talking about PVV's far-right policies.

In May 2024, he said at a news conference that he aimed to be "a prime minister for all Netherlanders" and that his purpose was to serve the public good.

But Dilan Yesilgoz-Zegerius, a member of the House of Representatives and leader of the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy, wrote on X: "The country now needs clarity and a strong Cabinet. Voters must be able to express their opinion on which direction they want the country to go. So, elections as soon as possible."

zhangzhouxiang@chinadaily.com.cn