© REUTERS/Francois Lenoir

“When I hear the word ‘vision’ I immediately think: go visit an eye specialist!” The second-longest-serving head of government in the European Union, highly pragmatic Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, is awkwardly proud of his antipathy for political idealism. So when Rutte held a speech at the Bertelsmann Stiftung in Berlin Friday before last about his ”vision” for Europe, you knew something was wrong.

The timing and location of his EU speech were certainly no coincidence. Two days before the SPD announced the results of their internal referendum on joining a new Grand Coalition with the CDU/CSU, Rutte clearly wanted to send a message to his closest European partner, and in particular to the already dissatisfied conservatives within Merkel’s party. The Hague is worried about losing Germany as a partner in the struggle for a small, more efficient, and more intergovernmental Europe. According to Rutte, ”The EU is not an unstoppable train”; he even disparaged the term “ever-closer Union” in his speech as ”horrible language.”

The Dutch have every reason to be worried. The Grand Coalition agreement is extremely vague about Germany’s European policy goals, and at the same time full of integrative rhetoric. One of the few things the agreement is clear about is Germany’s willingness to contribute more to the EU-budget now that Brexit will leave a gap of an estimated €10 billion per year. That puts the Dutch, as the largest net contributor per capita, under pressure to pay more into the European budget as well. Without significant structural reforms, however—for instance in agricultural policy and its structural funds—public and political support for a higher remittance to the EU is extremely low in the Netherlands.

Fuzzy Goals

Fuzzy European policy goals are nothing new in Germany. For the heartland of the European Union, it is probably even a wise course, considering Merkel has been successfully leading Europe from behind for more than a decade now. But with the arrival of ambitious French President Emmanuel Macron, Europe now has a leader at the front as well. With his plans for a eurozone budget, a eurozone finance minister, an EU-asylum minister, and European unemployment insurance, Macron is grabbing the momentum to supernationalize and integrate the European Union in a way Germany, and former CDU Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble in particular, has opposed for years. And so far, Merkel hasn’t really hit the brakes, in part because she realizes that her coalition partner, the SPD, supports Macron’s plans.

The revival of the German-Franco axis puts the Netherlands in a tight spot. For several years now, Dutch EU policy has been completely aligned with German EU policy. It’s been a risky but very successful strategy: with Merkel’s help, the Dutch got the vice presidency of the European commission (Frans Timmermans) and the chairmanship of the eurogroup (Jeroen Dijsselbloem), though that has meant wading into some tricky problems, for instance Greece during its budget crisis, the monetary policy of the European Central Bank, and the Visegrad countries’ refusal to take in refugees. Now that Germany is focusing again on France, it looks like the Netherlands is losing a second important European partner after the United Kingdom that shared similar views on the future of the European Union.

Shortly after the SPD referendum, Dutch Finance Minister Wopke Hoekstra announced a new alliance between The Hague and seven “Nordic” countries: Denmark, Sweden, Ireland , Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Finland. In a paper they published together, they resisted the idea of any “far-reaching transfers of competence to the European level.” In order to regain public trust in the European Union, “decision making should remain firmly in the hands of member states.” So far Berlin hasn’t responded to this act of resistance from the ”small eight,” but the already dissatisfied conservatives within Merkel’s party will certainly have taken notice.

As a mediator between Germany, France, and the UK, the Dutch were allowed to play with the “big boys” for decades. It gave The Hague a role in which the country could punch above its weight and help shape the EU. But over the past year and a half the Dutch position in Europe has significantly changed. First Brexit and now the revival of the German-Franco axis have forced the government to rethink its EU-strategy. The Netherlands used to be the “smallest of the largest” member states; now it seems that it has become the “largest of the smallest.” And that is a vision Mark Rutte certainly never had.

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© REUTERS/Yves Herman

You probably still remember the Dutch parliamentary elections on March 15 of this year. The international press landed in The Hague to see if the once-tolerant Netherlands would be the next populist domino to fall after the Brexit vote and the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States. That didn’t happen; far-right candidate Geert Wilders was defeated, Prime Minister Mark Rutte got a strong mandate to form a new government, and a voter turnout of 81.9 percent was the highest in almost thirty years.

“All quiet on the Western front,” you could almost hear international journalists whisper when they left the country breathing a sigh of relief. But a closer look at the post-election Dutch political landscape reveals a heavily polarized country where a cacophony of one-issue and single-group parties forces the establishment to be uncompromising in negotiations for a new government.

It took Theresa May exactly 18 days to form a new government with the Northern Irish DUP in a heavily divided United Kingdom after her disastrous parliamentary elections on June 8. New French President Emmanuel Macron experienced a low-turnout record in the recent parliamentary elections, but needed only 45 days to form a broad-based government. In the Netherlands, talks for Rutte’s third administration are entering their fourth month now, and it is still unclear whether the parties involved will be able to reach an agreement any time soon.

Rutte’s Liberal Party (VVD), the Christian Democrats (CDA), and the Progressive Democrats ‘66, the so-called “engine block” of the future coalition, need a fourth party to have a majority in the Dutch parliament. The Greens left the negotiations twice over the engine block’s demands to change the Geneva convention in order to keep refugees out of the country and Europe as much as possible. Now the Christian Union (CU) is invited to the talks, but their conservatism on ethical issues and drug policy are problematic for the progressive Democrats ‘66. One way or the other, the future coalition will be an awkward mixture of parties close to Wilders’ anti-immigrant rhetoric (VVD and CDA), Wilders’ fiercest critics (D66), and probably a niche party with conservative ethical viewpoints (CU).

For traditional parties in the Netherlands, the price for participating in government, especially as a junior partner, is extremely high. Rutte’s government with the social-democratic PvdA was considered relatively successful in both the Netherlands and Europe. It was the first cabinet in twenty years that actually made it to the end of its term, even though it lacked a majority in the Dutch Senate (the upper house). With tough labor market reforms, housing, and healthcare, it managed to bring government spending under control and push the Dutch economy back in Europe’s top.

Nevertheless, the PvdA was severely punished in March of this year, losing more than three quarters of their voters. Many traditional Turkish and Moroccan votes were lost to the culturally conservative migrant party DENK, the elderly vote went to the populist 50+ party, the young leftist voters supported “Dutch Trudeau” Jesse Klaver, and progressive centrist voters felt more at home with the Democrats 66, leaving the Social Democrats behind as a party for virtually no one. Participating in government and taking responsibility in difficult times are no longer automatically a virtue for traditional parties in the Netherlands. The Greens and other center-left parties noticed this and are now hesitant to jump in.

Close to Wilders’ Wishes

Whereas the left is divided mainly on socio-economic issues after a period of heavy budget cuts, the parties on the right were successful with a renewed cultural conservatism. The CDA and Rutte’s VVD contained Wilders this election by approaching his rhetoric about migration, Islam, and multicultural society. Now that the economy is up and running again and unemployment rates are dropping rapidly, socio-economic problems lose their urgency and are replaced once more by “identity politics” and security issues. And that again is a problem for leftist parties, which are considered to be unreliable on law-and-order and have little to gain in a new center-right government.

The Netherlands will therefore most likely get a coalition agreement that in many ways is close to Wilders’ wishes, with stricter rules for migrants and their integration into Dutch society, and more euroskepticism. The international journalists that claimed that populism was beaten in the Netherlands should have a second look – the populist agenda is increasingly incorporated in the policymaking process.

The explosion of one-issue and single-group parties in the Netherlands is also to some extend a result of Wilders’ success. The migrant party DENK, the Socialist Party (SP), the 50+ party for the elderly, and the party for animal rights have all grown out of distrust for the Netherlands’ traditional popular parties. The anti-establishment attitude that populists have been feeding for years has now created new political formations on all sides of the political spectrum. Where new one-issue and single-group parties in the past used to be pressure valves, they are now becoming the new normal. Or, as commentator Rene Cuperus of the Dutch daily Volkskrant concluded after the elections, “The nation has fallen apart in a populist and a progressive elitist Netherlands.”

Sixteen years of Wilders’ populism have radically changed the Dutch political landscape. The traditional division between left and right has been replaced by pro- versus contra-globalism, by inclusion versus exclusion of minorities, and by anti-establishment versus establishment parties. The volatility of the Dutch voter is looming ever larger for traditional governing parties, which feel the constant pressure of one-issue and single-group parties eating away parts of their constituencies. The new government will have the immense task of dealing with this polarization while providing certainties in an increasingly globalizing world. Otherwise, the international press might conclude four years from now that “the western front has been breached.”

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© REUTERS/Yves Herman

In the end, it was a mixture of opportunism and populism-light that won the day for Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s liberal People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) and the center-right Christian Democratic Appeal. The CDA-led proposal to let children sing the national hymn every morning at school would have been unthinkable a decade ago. Rutte’s letter in multiple Dutch newspapers demanding that immigrants act “normal or leave” could have been written by anti-migration, anti-Islam, anti-EU Geert Wilders himself. And by refusing to let Turkish ministers campaign in the Netherlands, Rutte deliberately showed Dutch voters a glimpse of the kind of authoritarianism many Wilders supporters long for in a leader.

In short, the election did not stop the country’s veering to the right. For more than a decade now, Geert Wilders’ Freedom Party (PVV) has been setting the course, with mainstream parties either directly copying the populists’ proposals or reacting to the issues they put on the agenda. That has served to legitimize Wilders’ party, which is essentially a one-man band, and further radicalize the PVV – and, indirectly, the Dutch center-right as well. Yet it is not only the CDA and VVD that have been forced to respond to the populists’ pressure. Left-wing parties, too, have re-shaped their image, painting themselves as a direct rebuke. The success of newcomer Jesse Klaver, the Green party’s young and energetic leader, was built upon a message of hope and optimism, one that consciously mirrored Wilders’ rhetoric of fear and decline. The Greens explicitly profiled their cosmopolitan and liberal values – a course they likely would not have pursued if Wilders had not stirred up the Dutch political arena so dramatically.

Bittersweet Victory

Even though Rutte’s VVD came out on top these elections, Dutch voters very clearly rejected his government’s policies over the last four years. His party lost about a quarter of its share of votes. The Labour Party (PvdA), the VVD’s coalition partner, suffered an embarrassing setback, plummeting from about 25 percent of the vote in 2012 to a paltry 6 percent this year. The punishing they received at the ballot box is also a sign that anti-establishment sentiment is not only a far-right or far-left phenomenon. Voters ignored the fact that it was the PvdA and especially its leader Lodewijk Asscher who kept the government together over the last four years. The days that the PvdA could count on the left’s strategic vote are definitely over, and that signals a remarkable shift in a country built upon compromises, a country that always chose pragmatism and responsibility over idealism and adventurism.

The massive international press attention on Geert Wilders over the past weeks and months is understandable, given both the fears that Europe could witness a domino effect in French and German elections later this year, and the fact that Wilders fashioned himself as the Netherlands’ very own Donald Trump.

Much more interesting, however, has been the fragmentation of the Dutch party landscape these elections. The country is used to dealing with a host of political newcomers, especially compared to most European countries. But 28 parties participated in this year’s election. That is remarkable, even by Dutch standards. And it was not only the large number of contenders that surprised – it was also the fact that many of these parties serve very specific interests and target groups. This is worrying sign that the polarization of Dutch society, initiated by Wilders, has now reached the full political spectrum.

The country’s traditional mainstream parties struggle to connect to broad sections of the society and are unable to accommodate them under one roof. That trend is growing increasingly common across Europe, but it is especially noticeable in the Netherlands because of the low threshold of votes needed to enter parliament and the country’s extremely volatile electorate. The lesson other European states can learn from this Dutch election is not how to fight populism with opportunism, but rather that the large, popular parties need to rethink how they speak to an increasingly emancipated and divided electorate. Otherwise we might be looking at the end of Europe’s traditional party structure, with a serious risk of further polarization.

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© Artwork: Dominik Herrmann

There is no doubt about it – Geert Wilders is ready to take the next step. “When I become the Prime Minister of the Netherlands, I will clear the decks,” he warned in de Telegraaf, the largest Dutch daily, after he was found guilty of inciting discrimination on December 9, 2016. It wasn’t entirely clear whether “clearing the decks” was a shot at the judges who convicted him, or whether Wilders meant his controversial comments about Moroccans. Either way, the conviction could cost the leader of the right-wing populist Freedom Party (PVV) a seat in government next year. Still, with around twenty percent of the vote, Wilders and the PVV are leading the latest polls.

The Dutch political system has splintered over the last decade; the present coalition partners, Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s liberal People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) and the Labor Party (PvdA), only hold a paltry 25 percent of the vote. They have been challenged by a dozen political newcomers on the left and the right, not to mention single-issue groups like the 50+ Party for the elderly, the “migrant party” DENK or the Party for the Animals. The coalition carries a majority in the House of Representatives but not the senate.

That has rendered policy making a messy business, involving makeshift coalitions with a rotating cast of parties. A reform on housing, for example, was supported by the social-liberal democrats D66, the Reformed Political Party (SGP), and the Christian Union (CU). In the “labor and social reform coalition,” two more parties joined – the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) and the Greens. Almost every party cooperated with Rutte in some sort of coalition – every party except for Geert Wilders’ PVV.

In a political system built upon compromise, Wilders remains the uncompromising one-eyed king. And so far, no party has showed any willingness to cooperate with Wilders after the 2017 elections either. This year’s vote will reveal whether the far-right leader can rebrand himself as Wilders 2.0, willing and able to make drastic compromises in order to govern, or whether he will remain glued to the opposition benches for another four years.

Wild, Wilder, Wilders

Geert Wilders was born on September 6, 1963, in the small southeastern city of Venlo, nestled along the German border. He is the youngest in a family of three children and was therefore “a bit spoiled,” as he admitted in a radio documentary in 2006 – the last documentary on his life where he actively cooperated in its making.

His father worked as a manager at the city’s largest firm, Océ, a printing and copying hardware manufacturer. His mother was born in the Dutch East Indies into a colonial Dutch-Indonesian family. A quiet, peaceful childhood was followed by a markedly wilder adolescence. Wilders grew his hair long, donned leather jackets and gold earrings, drank beer, and skipped college classes. After graduating, he took a course in social security insurance and was later drafted into the Dutch army. After he was conscripted, he left for Israel where he worked for two years and travelled around the Middle East, an experience that left a deep impression. Wilders became a self-professed “friend and fan” of the state of Israel, which he called “the only democratic ray of light surrounded by suppressing dictatorial regimes.” For Wilders, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was the forefront of a global culture clash between political Islam and Western, Judeo-Christian values, making Israel an important and symbolic ally. His ties to the country have been close ever since.

In 1990 Wilders was hired as the parliamentary assistant and speechwriter of Frits Bolkestein of the VVD, a Dutch lawmaker who would later serve as the European Commissioner for Internal Market and Services. It was during this phase that Wilders became a fierce critic of multiculturalism, Islam, and the European Union. Bolkestein was one of the first established politicians in the Netherlands who openly criticized Dutch migration policy and multicultural society in the 1990s. It was only natural that Wilders became Bolkestein’s “sorcerer’s apprentice.” He entered parliament as part of the VVD in 1998 and soon became a spokesman for the far-right.

During the rise of conservative Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn (also an outspoken critic of multiculturalism and Islam) and after Fortunyn’s assassination in May 2002 by a radical animal rights activist, Wilders’ criticism of his party’s socially liberal course sharpened. It ultimately led to a showdown in 2004, when Wilders refused to support the VVD’s position on Turkey’s accession to the EU. He left the party but kept his seat in parliament and founded the Group Wilders, which became the Freedom Party (PVV) two years later.

Shifting to the Right

The PVV entered parliament in 2006 with nearly six percent of the vote. In the party’s early years, Wilders positioned himself as both a strict conservative and a market liberal; he was tough on socio-cultural issues like migration and integration, but his free market economic policies were still very much in line with those of his former party. After 2006, though, his position and tone started to radicalize, particularly on the issues of multiculturalism and Islam. In August of 2007 he compared the Koran with Hitler’s Mein Kampf. His apocalyptic short film about Islam, “Fitna,” was released one year later to great controversy. In a 2010 press conference in London, he called the Prophet Mohammed a “barbarian, a mass murderer, and a pedophile.”

It was during this phase that Wilders remade his liberal market views and fashioned himself as something of a gatekeeper for the Dutch welfare system. “Our carefully-built social welfare state is a source of pride, but it has become a magnet for low-educated, non-Western migrants,” he wrote in a 2010 manifesto.

During the height of the European financial crisis, Wilders made a dramatic pivot on the EU, too. Until then, he had supported the concept of the single market and the euro. But by 2012 he wanted out of the EU, out of the euro, out of the visa-free Schengen zone, and out of the European Stability Mechanism (ESM). Both his anti-EU and socio-economic stance were closely linked to his views on Islam. Wilders often speaks of “EUrabia” when talking about European politics. He holds the “liberal, multicultural elite” in Brussels responsible for what he has referred to as an Islamic asylum “tsunami” across the continent. And he fears that the bloc’s basic social structures at under threat. “Islamization in Europe has enormous consequences for our education, housing policy, social security, and the welfare state,” he was quoted as saying in 2009.

His incendiary comments on Moroccans signaled a new, even more radical turn. During a rally in The Hague in March 2014, Wilders asked his supporters whether they wanted more or fewer Moroccans in their country. When they called for fewer, he promised to take care of it. Until that point, he had criticized Islam as a religion, not specific groups. Many PVV politicians were disgusted by Wilders’ comments and left the party. For the court in Schiphol, too, singling out Moroccans was one step too far.

But Wilders was quick to flip the story into a battle with the “corrupt political elite” trying to silence him, a group that included media and the judiciary. He deemed the Dutch House of Representatives a “fake parliament” and claimed he was convicted by a “politicized court.” The fact that he fundamentally questioned the validity of basic democratic institutions drove a deeper wedge between Wilders and any possible coalition partners.

Populist 2.0

Wilders is not your usual far-right populist, at least not compared to his European counterparts Marine Le Pen, the leader of the National Front in France, or Frauke Petry of Alternative for Germany (AfD). He is among the three longest-serving members of the Dutch parliament (18 years) and has been a junior partner in government (2010 – 2012), making him an integral part of the very establishment he claims to detest.

That also makes him one of the most experienced right-wing populists around. Throughout the years, he has succeeded in deftly combining a fairly leftist socio-economic policy and a euroskeptic agenda with far-right views on migration and integration. He has an uncanny sense of timing and dominates the media with his Twitter account and YouTube channel.

Wilders is also quite unique in his claim that he wants to protect the liberal social order. Islam is his primary target, no matter what issue is on the table. He believes the “liberal Netherlands” of old is being threatened by a “culturally backward Islam.” Jews and homosexuals are very much part of Wilders’ “liberal Netherlands” and have to be protected against Muslims.

You will never hear Wilders speak of conservative family values issues, unlike Le Pen or Petry; nor does the PVV express anti-Semitic or homophobic sentiments. That makes the party far more appealing to a broader spectrum of voters, including Jews, women, and members of the LGBTQ community. They, too, might be longing for the illusion of the “open and tolerant Netherlands” of the past.

Still, it seems highly unlikely that Wilders will land a seat in the next Dutch government come March’s elections. Even if the PVV becomes the strongest party, it will probably need more than two partners to form a coalition, and Wilders will be hard pressed to find them. He would find himself in the role of dealmaker, one he has never had and most probably would not like very much. The question also remains whether the PVV will be able to identify suitable ministers and state secretaries from within their ranks. Up until now, Wilders has never allowed any party members to outshine him; the PVV has always been a one-man show.

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