door Florian Callens
Published on Thursday, September 12, 2024 at 7:13 PM •
2 min read
Dutch politician Pieter Omtzigt is temporarily withdrawing from the spotlight. The leader of the NSC party announced this himself on the social media X.
“I will be taking a step back in the coming weeks. The past year has been exceptionally intense and that means that, for health reasons, I will be working more in the background in the coming weeks and less in the spotlight for a while,” Pieter Omtzigt said on X.
Omtzigt’s announcement comes at an unfortunate time. Dutch politics is on the eve of the General Political Considerations, during which the budget for the coming political year will also be drawn up. That Pieter Omtzigt will miss that is quite remarkable, since the budget is his specialty. During those discussions, he will be replaced by Nicolien van Vroonhoven, vice-chair of NSC.
Who is Pieter Omtzigt?
The 50-year-old Pieter Omtzigt has made a remarkable rise in Dutch politics in recent years. As a member of the CDA, he made himself noticed in 2019 and the years after during the infamous benefits affair.
After a clash with leading figures Hugo de Jonge and Wopke Hoekstra, he eventually left the CDA. Shortly afterwards, he briefly disappeared from public life on sick leave. Upon his return, Omtzigt briefly sat in parliament as an independent, after which he founded a new party in 2023 with Nieuw Sociaal Contract (NSC).
That party achieved a major victory during the most recent elections for the House of Representatives. NSC then began a long government negotiation together with the PVV, VVD and BBB. During those talks it was decided to form an extra-parliamentary cabinet, with Dick Schoof as prime minister. The four party leaders would not play an official role in that government. Behind the scenes, however, they still appear to be closely involved in everything that happens. But that will now have to happen without Pieter Omtzigt.
In the coming weeks I will take a step back. The past year has been exceptionally intense and that means that, for health reasons, I will be working more in the background and less in the spotlight for a while. Nicolien van Vroonhoven, our deputy chairwoman, will…
— Pieter Omtzigt (@PieterOmtzigt) September 11, 2024
