Hope, guts and pride: The new right-wing Dutch coalition plans

From Dutch News and Associated Press

The agreement put together by the four coalition parties over the past five months covers 26 pages and contains what the new partners say is the headline strategy. 

Given the title Hoop, lef en trots (hope, guts, and pride) the document is supposed to pave the way for ministers to flesh out actual policy and how the new strategy will be implemented. Nevertheless, it contains a string of detailed plans covering 10 key areas including immigration, the economy, public safety and boosting individual financial security. 

“Whether we are talking about feeling secure about the future, healthcare, money in your pocket or the availability of sufficient housing, we have big ambitions,” the four parties say in the introduction. “We also want to reverse the much too high influx of refugees and immigrants. We want farmers, market gardeners and fishermen to have a future again.”

Geert Wilders, (left: leader of PVV, or Party for Freedom) cried victory on what he called “a historic day,” claiming he had made sure the three other coalition parties, including the one of outgoing Prime Minister Mark Rutte, had accepted the core of his program.

Wilders had already reluctantly acknowledged that he will not succeed Rutte at the country’s helm. The parties still have to agree on a prime minister, who is expected to be a technocrat from outside the party structures.  Speculation has centered on Ronald Plasterk, from the Labor Party, who shot back to prominence this year when he became the first “scout” to hold talks with political leaders about possible coalitions.

The parties will explain the program to parliament Thursday, though a debate will not be held on the agreement until next week.

Dutch News continues listing some of the main points. It’s a long list.  Ones that caught my eye are

• Refugees will no longer be given permanent residency permits
• Refugees who fail in their applications will be “deported” as much as possible, including “forced deportations”
• Refugees who are granted the right to stay will no longer have priority to get social housing
• The automatic right to bring in family members will be scrapped
• Knowledge of the Holocaust will become a compulsory part of the integration process
  
• It will only be possible to become Dutch after 10 years and if legally possible, people will have to give up their foreign nationality to do so
• Level B1 will become the standard language demand for naturalisation
• More measures to stimulate the use of permanent job contracts
• Public transport will be strengthened, particularly in rural areas,
• The Netherlands will no longer pursue a more ambitious strategy to improve nature than the rest of Europe
• There will be no compulsory measures to reduce the amount of livestock or compulsory purchase orders for farms  !!!
• Cheap “red diesel”, scrapped in 2013, will be brought back for farmers
• The Netherlands will develop four rather than two new nuclear power stations
• Heat pumps will not be compulsory and subsidies for electric cars will be scrapped in 2025
• The minimum age to be a sex worker will be increased to 21
• There will be a “sharper” division made between (peaceful) demonstrations and disruptive acts, including threats against others public violence “will not be tolerated”
• The definition of membership of a terrorist organisation will be widened and the maximum sentence for involvement in terrorism increased to 20 years.
• “The Netherlands will continue to support Ukraine against Russian aggression politically, militarily, financially and morally”
• The Nato defence spending norm of 2% of GDP will be anchored law
• Research will start on the logistics of moving the Dutch embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem

The Times of Israel comments:-

If the Netherlands does follow through, it will be the sixth country to open an embassy in Jerusalem, following Papua New Guinea, Kosovo, Honduras, Guatemala and the US. Israel sees the moves as strengthening its claim to the city as its capital, though most foreign countries situate their embassies in or around Tel Aviv.

The Jerusalem clause, which is unprecedented in coalition agreements in Western Europe, is one of multiple dramatic departures in the 26-page document from agreements undertaken in previous coalition contracts.

The agreement was announced amid a polarizing debate in Dutch society over violence by anti-Israel activists on the campus of the University of Amsterdam and beyond. Many view this violence, and the rise in antisemitic incidents triggered by Israel’s war with Hamas, as the result of a failed immigration policy and far-left indoctrination.

A vocal supporter of Israel, Wilders had lived for a year in Moshav Tomer in Israel in his youth.

He has called for the Netherlands to move its embassy to Jerusalem for years, including in a speech in 2013 in Los Angeles before the American Freedom Alliance. “Let us fly the flags of all the free and proud nations of the world over embassies in Jerusalem, the only true capital of Israel and the cradle of our Judeo-Christian civilization,” Wilders said.