Geert Wilders’ PVV placed second in the vote, followed by the center-right VVD.
:quality(50)/2023/06/12/6486ca1a0143b_bbb0863-1.png)
Published
Reading time: 2 min
:quality(50)/2024/06/09/000-34vq8tz-6665dbe5b8196494153579.jpg)
The left in front of the Eurosceptics. While the far right has been leading the polls for several weeks, the GroenLinks-PvdA list wins the European elections in the Netherlands, according to national estimates relayed by the European Parliament, Sunday June 9, at 6:30 p.m. The alliance between the Greens and the Labor Party won 21.6% of the vote and eight seats in the vote, which was held on Thursday, with the Dutch being the first voters in the EU to go to the polls.
Seven months after its surprise victory in the legislative elections, the Freedom Party (PVV), the far-right formation of Geert Wilders, is recording strong progress. While it only obtained one seat in the European Parliament in 2019, the movement will this time send seven elected officials to the Strasbourg hemicycle, after having collected 17.7% of the votes. The VVD, liberal party of outgoing Prime Minister Mark Rutte, obtained 11.6% of the vote. The Christian Democrats (CDA) and the social liberals of D66 follow with 9.7% and 8.1% of the votes respectively. The Peasant Citizen Movement (BBB) ranks sixth, with 5.3% of the votes.
The results in the Netherlands were closely followed by the rest of the European Union, after several months of negotiations between the PVV and right-wing parties to form a government coalition. In mid-March, Geert Wilders gave up on becoming prime minister, paving the way for an agreement with the pro-farmer BBB party, the liberal VVD party and the new anti-corruption party NSC. A government must be formed by early July.
This alliance with the far right, however, risks costing the Dutch liberals dearly. At the end of May, Valérie Hayer, president of the centrist Renew group in Parliament, affirmed on BFMTV that she wanted to exclude the VVD from the group because of this coalition. “The sanitary cordon [contre l’extrême droite], we have always respected him. (…) I will take my responsibilities the day after the election so that these values continue to be respected”explained the MEP, head of the majority list in France.
For this campaign, the PVV has given up on including “Nexit”, or leaving the European Union, in its program, which Geert Wilders advocated during the legislative elections, recalls the site Euractiv.fr. The Eurosceptic and Islamophobic party, however, insisted on its promise to “preserve sovereignty and national identity” of the Netherlands and to fight against what he describes as “tsunami” of EU rules.