By Priscilla Slomp and Edo van der Goot
Jan 20, 2024 at 5:02 am
A restless week in the formation. This has everything to do with the VVD faction in the Senate, which announced that it would vote in favor of the dispersal law. All forming parties voted against it in the House of Representatives. Also that of the VVD.
“If you want to be sure that there will never be a cabinet, then transparency is the solution,” said former minister Gerrit Zalm in 2017 in his role as informant.
Yet PVV leader Geert Wilders, winner of the elections and initiator of the formation, is unable to hold back when something happens that he does not like.
This week it happened again. “We have a problem,” he said on Wednesday before entering consultations with the other leaders of the forming parties VVD, NCC and BBB. To be sure, he underlined his message a few hours later on X: “We have a serious problem.”
That ‘problem’ is the dispersal law that will be adopted in the Senate next week thanks to the VVD senators.
Calling a democratically adopted law ‘a problem’ is striking. Especially because there are many concerns within the formation about guaranteeing the democratic constitutional state. This means that the distribution law also creeps into the formation
A solution should be found in the coming days, Wilders said this week. But it is unclear what that solution for a law adopted by parliament should look like. Behind the scenes at the other forming parties, they also do not know how Wilders wants to approach this.
VVD senators surprised friend and foe
The VVD senators surprised friend and foe on Tuesday evening by unanimously supporting the dispersal law of their ‘own’ outgoing State Secretary Eric van der Burg (Asylum, VVD). The VVD faction in the House of Representatives voted against the law in October.
Party leader Dilan Yesilgöz believes that the influx must first be reduced. Only then can there be any spreading. Apart from that, Yesilgöz has trouble with the law anyway. She had wanted there to be a maximum number of asylum seekers to be distributed and the law had to be temporary. Both are not the case.
Party leaders Caroline van der Plas (BBB) and Pieter Omtzigt (NSC) also voted against due to the lack of a maximum. Otherwise, it remains “mopping with the tap open”, said Van der Plas. Wilders’ PVV wants no one to enter the Netherlands anymore and is calling for an asylum stop. He certainly doesn’t like spreading, even under duress.
In short: the four political leaders are on the same page in their aversion to the dispersal law in the House of Representatives. In mid-December they therefore called on the Senate to temporarily put the law on hold. So that didn’t work.
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VVD normally radiates unity
The distribution law also causes quite a bit of resentment within the VVD. It is difficult to explain that the House of Representatives faction is completely against and the senators from the same party are in favor.
It immediately led to angry party celebrities. Former VVD State Secretary Fred Teeven takes it The Telegraph up for Yesilgöz. “I think that the Senate faction has thrown Dilan Yesilgöz under the bus,” he told the newspaper.
But the difference in positions within the party also reflects on Yesilgöz’s party leadership itself. That also affects the formation. Does she still have enough support within the VVD? Can the other party leaders count on her?
The party does not radiate unity, while the VVD is known for closing ranks when there is a fuss.
State Secretary Van der Burg must also conclude that ‘his’ law has passed after months of hard work, but that his party will not emerge unscathed. “We have more than scratches, that’s clear,” he said on Friday.
VVD members received two letters this week. One from Edith Schippers, VVD faction leader of the Senate, and one from Yesilgöz. Both made another attempt to explain why the factions are not on the same page.
They will undoubtedly be able to do that again next Saturday when the VVD congress is on the agenda.
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Yesilgöz after VVD support for distribution law: ‘Not in favor of’
‘Weakening of democracy usually happens step by step’
The parties that are not involved in the formation talks, i.e. the upcoming opposition, are now rubbing their hands. The left-wing parties in particular are averse to the fact that there is any need to talk about guaranteeing the rule of law. For party leader Frans Timmermans, the seat gain of GL-PvdA was overshadowed by the gain of the PVV.
The opposition parties have almost no influence on the formation process. Timmermans does try. Together with Laurens Dassen (Volt) and Esther Ouwehand (Party for the Animals), he suspects that informant Ronald Plasterk is not carrying out the assignment properly.
There must first be agreement on how the rule of law is guaranteed. Only then can substantive negotiations begin. These two processes now appear to be intertwined.
The three party leaders emphasize the importance of the rule of law and quote Henri Bontenbal of the CDA. “The weakening of democracy usually occurs step by step, by gradually eroding the institutions that uphold the democratic constitutional state,” Bontenbal said during a debate on the formation on December 16. “Then I think of statements in which judges are called ‘cowardly’, parliament ‘fake’ and journalism ‘lackeys of power’,” he said, referring to Wilders.
Timmermans, Dassen and Ouwehand asked Plasterk in vain for text and explanation. Plasterk will not submit a report until “early February”.
The GL-PvdA leader wants to play the forming parties against each other, he said last month NRC know. “PVV, NSC, VVD and BBB should not be able to continue with each other,” he said about his goal. “We have to achieve that, as quickly as possible, on the basis of promises that they will not be able to keep.”
For the time being, Timmermans can let the distribution law do its work.
2024-01-20 04:02:00
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