AMSTERDAM: Dutch far right leader Geert Wilders said on Tuesday his PVV party would leave the governing coalition, toppling the right wing government and likely leading to new elections.
Wilders said his coalition partners were not willing to embrace his ideas on halting asylum migration, for which he had demanded immediate support last week.
“No signature under our asylum plans. The PVV leaves the coalition,” Wilders said in a post on X.
Wilders’ surprise move ends an already fragile coalition which has struggled to reach any consensus since its installation last July.
It will likely bring new elections in a few months, adding to political uncertainty in the euro zone’s fifth-largest economy.
It will likely also delay a decision on a possibly historic increase in defense spending to meet new NATO targets.
And it will leave the Netherlands with only a caretaker government when it receives NATO country leaders for a summit to decide on these targets in The Hague later this month.
Anti-Muslim populist Wilders won the most recent election in the Netherlands, but recent polls have shown he has lost support since joining government.
Polls now put his party roughly at par with the Labour/Green combination that is currently the second-largest in parliament.
-Bart H. Meijer
