00:00Well, while South Korea's political chaos may be winding down, the Netherlands is in full turmoil.
00:06Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schroef says he's stepping down from the top job and will stay on as a caretaker.
00:12The announcement confirms a snap election is now on the horizon for the country.
00:16The move came after far-rights leader Goethe Wilders toppled the government Tuesday by pulling his party for freedom from the coalition made of four parties
00:26because it would not back his plans for tougher asylum rules.
00:31This alliance had only been in place since Wilders' PVV came out on top in November's election in 2023.
00:38Let's hear from Wilders and Schroef now.
00:45I also just informed the Prime Minister that I will withdraw the PVV ministers from the Cabinet and that we can no longer bear responsibility for this.
00:53I signed up for the strictest asylum policy, not for the downfall of the Netherlands.
00:59And our responsibility for this Cabinet therefore also ends at this moment.
01:07A year ago I was asked to become Prime Minister of the Netherlands, a request that I never expected.
01:13But I said yes because I was convinced that I could contribute to solving the problems that this country is facing.
01:18I still have that conviction.
01:21And so together with the ministers of the VVD, NSC and BBB, I will continue in a caretaker capacity until a new Cabinet is formed.
01:31Because life in the Netherlands and abroad continues.
01:34And decisions must be made that cannot be postponed.
01:37Well, let's speak more on this with Lars Brumel, a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Public Administration of Linden University.
01:49Great to have you on the programme, Lars. Thanks so much for joining us.
01:52So, some politicians have argued that many of the PVV's demands when it comes to asylum seekers are similar to policies that are already in the coalition agreement.
02:01Vildes says he wants his coalition partners to commit to his 10-point plan on asylum seekers.
02:08What exactly are the discrepancies between what Vildes wants and what the coalition partners want?
02:15I think what we have seen today is that the far-right PVV party withdrew from the Dutch coalition government, effectively causing the collapse of the Schoof Cabinet.
02:26But to be honest, I think it's not only about today, because I think this move from Vildes did not surprise anyone in the Hague.
02:33I think most people were anticipating this to happen, not only after Geert Vildes introduced this 10-point migration plan last week,
02:41for which he demanded full commitment from his coalition partners, but which he could not get.
02:47And that move, I think that's the move that now formally collapsed this government.
02:51But in truth, this cabinet had been unstable from the very beginning.
02:56I think the only stable factor in this government was political instability.
03:00So, this move by Vildes, it wasn't actually a shock, but I think it's rather the natural end-point of a coalition that was never built to last long.
03:10Yeah, Vildes definitely threatened to topple the government several times before this.
03:15Do you think his coalition partners bear some responsibility here?
03:19Should they have taken him more seriously?
03:21Well, it's actually quite difficult to say, because this coalition has many, many frictions, many tensions.
03:30It was only formed less than a year ago.
03:33And right away, it was clear that the combination of parties was very fragile.
03:36So, you had to pay for a populist party with radical demands, particularly related to migration and multiculturalism, but also the liberals of the VVD party, who lost the recent national election and had to develop a new profile after their leader, Mark Rutte, stepped down after being in national politics for more than a decade.
03:57And then you had these two political newcomers that were part of the coalition, so on the one hand, the small BBB party, a new farmers party with no governing experience.
04:07And also the newly established new social contract party, which was a brand new party that was only established two years ago, but joined this right-wing government, but soon turned out to be internally unstable, with also unclear and unstable leadership.
04:27So, yes, of course, and I think what you see now also in the aftermath of what happened today and what happened yesterday is that also these three parties now try to put the blame on Geert Wilders, arguing that his move was irresponsible.
04:43He is not staking, he is only prioritizing himself rather than the country, but I think the main reason why this cabinet government with four parties had collapsed, I think it was already there in the beginning when this coalition was formed with a lot of political instability, a lot of frictions and tensions.
05:04And what we have seen that in the past few months, that all political leaders were not able to overcome these frictions and disagreements, and that ended today.
05:14Yeah, it seemed that this coalition was almost doomed from the beginning.
05:19Let's talk about these...
05:19I would say so, yeah.
05:20Let's talk about this plan, 10-point plan that Wilders is demanding that the government implement.
05:26Let's zoom in on that, because there are some legal concerns over some of his demands.
05:31Give us some of the key parts of that plan.
05:37Well, the plans that Wilders presented last week on Monday, it basically presented a 10-point plan with regards to migration.
05:48So one of the core elements of Wilders' policy profile was that he wants to decrease migration to the Netherlands.
05:55And some of these plans also included closing borders for every asylum seeker, also introducing more border control, often also referring to other countries like Germany and Austria.
06:10Yeah, but already from the beginning, it has been debated whether it was realistic to implement these policies, also with regards to national law, but also particular European and international law.
06:22Because what we have also seen yesterday was that this German plan for border control was also criticised there by a judge, by a court.
06:35So yeah, there were definitely some challenges with regards to the effectiveness and possibilities to implement these 10 points that Geert Wilders proposed.
06:45Well, Lars, you did mention some of the criticism that Wilders has received since pulling his party out of the coalition, some calling him reckless.
06:54Is this really about the asylum plan?
06:57Some say that this is just a move from Wilders to try and get people back to the polls in order to build on his victory in 2023.
07:06Do you think that's what's happening here? Is he just trying to become leader?
07:09Well, I think it's quite hard to say now, and I think we also have to see how things are going to develop.
07:17What we know is, of course, that in the past few months, the PVV was decreasing in the polls, the most important national polls.
07:27Also on the political agenda, new issues took central place, like the war on Ukraine, defence, international safety.
07:36And what we have seen in the past few weeks is that there was less attention for migration, also less support for the PVV in the polls.
07:48We also seen that it was quite difficult for the PVV to get their policies through within this coalition, not only with regards to migration, but also, for instance, with regards to health care, welfare, social housing.
08:00So I think this move of Wilders, I think he also did this move also to get migration back on the political agenda again, and also to show to his voters, to his supporters, that he still takes this issue of migration serious.
08:15So, yes, I think also the change in political developments within the Netherlands, but also worldwide, and also given recent polls and a decreased attention for migration, all these factors led to this step that Wilders took by bringing this coalition down over migration, with the hope that migration would then be the top issue for voters during the new elections that might be held after summer.
08:42Lars, great to talk to you.
08:44Lars, great to talk to you. Thanks so much for joining us on Prime News Paris today.
