ANPPVV leader Wilders has been in the House of Representatives for almost 25 years and would like to join the government
NOS Nieuws•vandaag, 11:34
The PVV would like to govern in a new cabinet and has changed the tone of the asylum plans. This is what PVV leader Geert Wilders said in an interview with De Telegraaf about the party’s new election manifesto.
The plan to set up a separate Ministry of Remigration and De-Islamization is no longer in place. However, the party still wants an asylum stop. The passage “Islam is not a religion, but a totalitarian ideology” from the previous program has been deleted. It now says: “We want less Islam in the Netherlands and we will achieve this through less non-Western immigration and a complete asylum stop.”
Wilders acknowledges in the interview that the tone has changed. “There may be some rough edges here and there,” he refers, among other things, to the ‘deletion’ of the ministry mentioned. “We’ve thought about that.” He does believe that “the core” of the party plans has not changed.
Wilders points out that there is “not suddenly another person”. “It is a nice thing for me to be able to participate in limiting the influx of asylum seekers. This is an opportunity to tackle major problems from asylum to purchasing power. To achieve this, everyone has to jump over their shadows.” And: “There is no strategy behind my attitude, but it is true that I think we should participate. And I also think that you should adopt a constructive attitude in negotiations.”
‘No taboos’
The PVV has existed for eighteen years and has been in opposition almost continuously. Many parties, such as the VVD under Mark Rutte, did not want to work with the PVV, often because of Wilders’ hard positions on, for example, the approach to asylum seekers and Islam.
With the arrival of the new VVD leader Dilan Yesilgöz, the PVV’s participation in government may be back in the picture. In anticipation of the PVV election manifesto, she previously announced that she would not rule out cooperation with that party in advance because she “first wants to see what Mr Wilders comes up with”. She considers excluding parties in advance to be “Hague hassle”.
Wilders makes it clear that he is also prepared to adjust proposals at the negotiating table for a new cabinet. “We have to negotiate about this. We would rather see 1 billion spent on raising dikes, then you will achieve more than D66 with 28 billion. Maybe we will arrive at a mix. We have no taboos and no breaking points.”
