Geert Wilders and Dutch Coalition Crisis: Asylum Policy in Spotlight

The Dutch gov­ern­ment is in cri­sis after Geert Wilders’ Par­ty for Free­dom with­drew from the rul­ing coali­tion over asy­lum pol­i­cy dis­putes. On 03 June 2025, Politi­co report­ed that far-right leader Geert Wilders announced his par­ty would quit the gov­ern­ment, throw­ing the Nether­lands into polit­i­cal tur­moil after coali­tion part­ners refused to sign his “ten-point plan” on asy­lum, includ­ing pro­pos­als to close bor­ders to asy­lum-seek­ers. The col­lapse comes less than a year after the four-par­ty coali­tion took pow­er fol­low­ing Wilders’ shock elec­toral vic­to­ry in Novem­ber 2023. The arti­cle begins:

Dutch far-right fig­ure­head Geert Wilders announced Tues­day morn­ing that his par­ty would quit the gov­ern­ment in The Hague, throw­ing the Nether­lands into tur­moil. Wilders’ Par­ty for Free­dom (PVV) left the coali­tion in a heat­ed dis­pute over the gov­ern­men­t’s posi­tion on asy­lum. “No sig­na­ture for our asy­lum plans. No changes to the [coali­tion] agree­ment. PVV is leav­ing the coali­tion,” Wilders post­ed on X. The Dutch gov­ern­ment, a coali­tion between Wilders’ far-right PVV, the pop­ulist Farmer-Cit­i­zens Move­ment (BBB), the cen­trist New Social Con­tract (NSC) and the lib­er­al Peo­ple’s Par­ty for Free­dom and Democ­ra­cy (VVD), had sched­uled cri­sis talks Tues­day morn­ing to dis­cuss Wilders’ demands for stricter asy­lum mea­sures. Wilders want­ed his coali­tion part­ners to com­mit imme­di­ate­ly to the PVV’s “ten-point plan” on asy­lum. Both he and his coali­tion part­ners doubt­ed there’d be an agree­ment at the meet­ing — and so it proved.

          Read more: https://www.politico.eu/article/geert-wilders-dutch-government-collapse/

Key Points

• Coali­tion part­ners BBB, NSC, and VVD lead­ers con­demned Wilders’ deci­sion as “irre­spon­si­ble” and accused him of putting per­son­al inter­ests above nation­al concerns.
• The gov­ern­ment col­lapse occurs weeks before a cru­cial NATO sum­mit in The Hague, where allies expect to boost defense spend­ing com­mit­ments significantly
• Polling shows dra­mat­ic shifts since the 2023 elec­tion, with BBB and NSC drop­ping to 1% while the Labour-Green Left alliance and VVD have gained popularity.
• For­mer EU Com­mis­sion­er Frans Tim­mer­mans called for imme­di­ate elec­tions, rul­ing out coop­er­a­tion with cur­rent coali­tion par­ties in any future gov­ern­ment formation.

Netherlands and the GNCA: Influence, Ideology, and International Connections

The Glob­al Nation­al Con­ser­v­a­tive Alliance (GNCA) in the Nether­lands is increas­ing­ly influ­enced by inter­na­tion­al net­works and pro-Russ­ian inter­ests, as evi­denced by Dutch far-right fig­ures who have attend­ed meet­ings with Krem­lin-linked lead­ers at strate­gic sum­mits. Key polit­i­cal actors open­ly express sup­port for Russia’s posi­tion in the Ukraine con­flict, with some lead­ers active­ly hop­ing for a Russ­ian vic­to­ry, which aligns with broad­er efforts to under­mine West­ern uni­ty. This ide­o­log­i­cal align­ment extends to exploit­ing domes­tic unrest, such as the Dutch farmer protests, which have been co-opt­ed by inter­na­tion­al fig­ures like Don­ald Trump and Tuck­er Carl­son to prop­a­gate con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries and polit­i­cal agen­das.

More­over, inves­tiga­tive reports reveal that cer­tain Dutch nation­al con­ser­v­a­tive lead­ers fit the pro­file of agents enabling Russ­ian intel­li­gence oper­a­tions, high­light­ing the oper­a­tional dimen­sion of these ide­o­log­i­cal ties. These devel­op­ments reflect a wider Euro­pean pat­tern, as research shows that Dutch far-right par­ties, such as Forum voor Democ­ra­tie and PVV, are sig­nif­i­cant­ly more pos­i­tive about Rus­sia and its pro­mo­tion of tra­di­tion­al con­ser­v­a­tive values.

Mean­while, a seg­ment of the Dutch pop­u­la­tion sup­ports coop­er­a­tion with Rus­sia despite repres­sion and inter­na­tion­al ten­sions. The Dutch farmer protests have also become a ral­ly­ing point for Europe’s right-wing pop­ulists, who frame gov­ern­ment cli­mate mea­sures as oppres­sive and use the move­ment to build transna­tion­al alliances. Secu­ri­ty ser­vices have raised con­cerns about Dutch extrem­ists being sus­cep­ti­ble to covert Russ­ian influ­ence, with pro-Russ­ian atti­tudes mak­ing some groups more vul­ner­a­ble to for­eign manip­u­la­tion and dis­in­for­ma­tion cam­paigns.

Exter­nal References:

1. Polar­i­sa­tion of atti­tudes towards Rus­sia in the Nether­lands (Clin­gen­dael Insti­tute, PDF)

2. Europe’s right wing pig­gy­backs on Dutch farmer protests (Politi­co)

3. Dutch extrem­ists like­ly swayed by covert Russ­ian influ­ence (NL Times)

Disclaimer

The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) employs AI through­out the post­ing process, includ­ing gen­er­at­ing sum­maries of news items, the intro­duc­tion, key points, and often the “con­text” sec­tion. We rec­om­mend ver­i­fy­ing all infor­ma­tion before use. Addi­tion­al­ly, images are AI-gen­er­at­ed and intend­ed sole­ly for illus­tra­tive pur­pos­es. While they rep­re­sent the events or indi­vid­u­als dis­cussed, they should not be inter­pret­ed as real-world photography.