RADIO NETHERLANDS WORLDWIDE: The biggest winners in Thursday's European Parliament elections in the Netherlands are the two most outspoken parties: Geert Wilders' nationalist anti-EU party and the firmly pro-EU social-liberal party D66.
Fielding candidates for the first time, Mr Wilders' staunchly anti-European party will be returning four of the 25 Dutch MEPs. The other winners are social-liberal D66 and Green Left, both of whom are firm advocates of the European Union; each will send three MEPs to Brussels.
The Freedom Party MEPs will be headed by Barry Madlener; Mr Wilders will remain an MP in The Hague. The Freedom Party has ruled out joining any of the existing multi-party factions in the EP. In his victory speech, Mr Madlener repeated he will go for "less Europe, more Netherlands, Turkey never an EU member". >>> By Rob Kievit | Friday, June 06, 2009
NRC HANDELSBLAD INTERNATIONAL: The Netherlands Is Now a Polarised Country
Stable government coalitions may be a thing of the past in the new, polarised Netherlands.
In politics, things can turn on a euro cent. Just six month ago Wouter Bos was celebrated for the way he dealt with the financial crisis. The Dutch Labour party leader and finance minister soared in the opinion polls. But all that was forgotten when people went to vote on Thursday, and dealt Bos' party a devastating blow: Labour lost four of its seven seats in the European parliament.
The Christian democrats, the other major coalition partner, also took a severe beating: it went from seven to five seats. That didn't keep prime minister and party leader Jan Peter Balkenende from claiming victory: "We said we wanted to remain the biggest party and that's what happened," Balkenende said, adding nevertheless that his coalition government will have to work hard to regain the public's confidence.
The big winner of Thursday's election was undoubtedly Geert Wilders, whose Party for Freedom (PVV) went from zero to four seats, making it the second biggest Dutch party in the Brussels parliament in its first European election.
Low turnout
The mainstream parties had silently hoped that the traditional low turnout for European elections would prevent a PVV breakthrough, going on the assumption that Wilders supporters are not that interested in Europe and wouldn't bother to vote. That turned out to be wrong. Despite a record low turnout - 36.5 percent, 2.5 points less than in 2004 - the PVV was able to attract 16.9 percent of all voters. According to research by public broadcaster NOS, many PVV voters were men and/or over fifty.
At a party meeting on Monday, Wilders had correctly predicted that the PVV would become bigger than his old party, the right-wing liberal VVD, which he broke away from in 2004. Still, VVD party leader Mark Rutte was not entirely unhappy with his party's three seats - down from four. Opinion polls had predicted a bigger loss. Just ahead of the election, Rutte had caused a controversy by proposing to broaden the definition of freedom of speech to include Holocaust denial. No matter how hard he tried to explain what exactly he meant, Rutte was ruthlessly attacked by political friends and foes alike. "This is a good result, " Rutte said on Thursday night.
But even Wilders had not expected his party to become bigger than Labour. "This the day the PVV finally made its breakthrough," he said. "People have had enough of the Balkenende and Bos cabinet." Wilders will not be going to Brussels himself; preferring to concentrate on national politics. Instead, an aide, Barry Madlener, will lead the PVV's four-man delegation to the European parliament, an institution it would like to see abolished. >>> By Herman Staal in The Hague | Friday, June 05, 2009
