Bezorgdheid in Europa over rol van Geert Wilders in mogelijke nieuwe kabinet (en)
Anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders i has emerged triumphant in the Netherlands' coalition talks, as the new government is set to introduce a bill on banning the Muslim face-covering veil and put stricter immigration rules in place so as to halve "non-Western" immigrants.
"A new wind will blow in the Netherlands," Mr Wilders said Thursday (30 September) in a joint press conference with the leaders of the Liberal Party (VVD) and the the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) that will form the minority government.
"We want the Islamisation to be stopped," he announced, as the "Freedom and responsibility" coalition programme was unveiled. A burqa ban and tougher immigration rules - Mr Wilders' key demands for granting parliamentary support to the minority government - are included in the agreement.
The deal is still controversial for a handful of Christian Democrat lawmakers, with a party convention on Saturday to decide whether to approve the four-year alliance.
Christian Democrat leader Maxime Verhagen i described the deal as a "very good governing agreement".
"I am convinced that it is an agreement that every Christian Democrat will be able to identify with," he said.
Despite Mr Wilders having the toughest anti-immigrant views, both the VVD and Christian Democrats pledged before the elections to reduce immigration. The caretaker Christian Democrat-led government also wanted to ban burqas.
Under the plans, immigrants already living in the Netherlands will face extra hurdles in bringing family members to the country and unskilled people will have even fewer chances of finding work and coming to the Netherlands.
Liberal leader Mark Rutte i, who is likely to become prime minister next week, said his government wanted "to give the country back to the working Dutch citizen."
But opposition leaders were angered at the concessions made to Mr Wilders.
"This is unmistakeably a Wilders' cabinet," said Femke Halsema i, leader of the green party. "It is about repression and reducing ethnic minorities."
The head of the Liberal opposition party D66, Alexander Pechtold i, decried the "discriminatory measures" affecting immigrants as "bullying." The agreement will lead to economic stagnation, he said. "The bill is being passed on to the next generation."
Banning the burqa, while controversial, is not unique to the Netherlands. The French parliament earlier this month approved a bill prohibiting the wearing of a full-face veil, while a similar piece of legislation has passed through the lower Belgian chamber and has yet to go to the Senate.
Only a few dozen women are believed to wear the burqa out of the roughly 900,000 Muslims living in the the Netherlands.
Merkel tensions
Mr Wilders on Thursday also took on German chancellor Angela Merkel i. Speaking in broken German during the press conference, he said "Ms Merkel, you are not right," and told her to stop meddling in Dutch politics, Financial Times Deutschland reports.
Ms Merkel earlier this week said she regretted that the Dutch minority government was going to rely on the support of an anti-Islam politician.
The Christian Democrat leader, standing next to Mr Wilders, tried to calm the waters and said he was convinced nothing would change in the good co-operation between the two neighbouring countries. He pointed to the good personal contact with Ms Merkel and their respective parties.
Mr Wilders will travel to Berlin on Saturday, to warn about the alleged danger Islam poses to democratic societies and to lobby for his international alliance to stem Islam in the West. On Monday, the Dutch politician is set to appear in court where he faces a trial for instigation to hatred for his movie "Fitna" in which he called on Muslims to rip out pages of the Koran.
EU budget cuts
While the part on immigration is the longest chapter of the accord - seven of its 46 pages - the coalition also proposes some measures which are set to put it on collision course with Brussels.
According to the deal, the Dutch contribution to the EU budget is set to be slashed by one billion euros, along with further billions saved from development and health care. Currently, the Netherlands is the biggest per-capita contributor to the EU budget, with some €8 billion a year, while Germany is the biggest net contributor.
It is however unlikely that Amsterdam will manage to downsize its contribution in the coming three years, as it has already made commitments under the 2007-2013 budgetary framework.
But for the next seven-year period due to start 2014, EU budget commissioner Janusz Lewandovski already hinted that "a compensation mechanism" was needed for big EU net funders, so that no country emerges as a "big loser."
Speaking on Tuesday in Brussels, the budget commissioner said it was important that EU contributions rest on sufficient public support.
"We are of course conscious what is the mood in Dutch politics," he said.