Hello and welcome to this live blog. Here we keep you informed all day about the most important political debate of the year.
15 minutes ago
Van der Plas is disappointed with low confidence in politics BBB leader Van der Plas is disappointed by the low percentage of people who have faith in politics. A poll by the RTL Nieuwspanel showed at the end of last month that it had fallen to 4 percent. There are also people who indicate “have little trust” in that percentage.
Van der Plas understands, because admits that the image that the room itself puts is “not beautiful”.
28 minutes ago
Debate goes through the debate until midnight has started again! Van der Plas will soon take the floor and she will only be the fourth speaker on the list. To prevent the debate from taking until deep into the night, Bikker suggests to stop the debate today at midnight. Then the other party leaders will be next tomorrow. A majority of the room can agree with that.
1 hour ago
Timmermans has finished his contribution. The debate is now suspended for the dinner break. In an hour it will continue with the fourth speaker, Caroline van der Plas (BBB).
2 hours ago
GL-PVDA does not want to participate in ‘Symbol Politics’ on asylum where GL-PVDA leader Timmermans mainly supports European asylum legislation, which after years of consultation is finally ready and will start next year, other parties also want a national approach.
For example, VVD, CDA and NSC argue for that. This concerns things like the duration of a residence status, or a two -state system for asylum seekers. Timmermans finds a lot of those proposals symbolic politics. In addition, he wants to work on labor migration. That is where the most nuisance comes from, he thinks.
This seems like a harbinger for a complicated formation on this subject. If these parties come so far of course.
2 hours ago
Timmermans not specifically about national asylum measures CDA, NSC and VVD to ask Timmermans how his party wants to tackle asylum migration in the national field. GL-PVDA announced a change of course in the field of asylum policy at the end of last year, but the parties do not see that. For example, CDA and NSC ask in vain or Timmermans with a bandwidth when it comes to the inflow of the new asylum seekers.
That advice is stated in a report on all types of migration, a report that is also embraced by GL-PvdA. Yet Timmermans does not seem to want to admit a color yet. People who flee for war and violence must receive care in the Netherlands, “then you can talk about bandwidths, but then you can’t work on a quota year year,” says Timmermans.
Bontenbal points out that there are few national measures in the GL-PvdA party program. Does the party see it for itself? Timmermans is also not concrete about this, and mainly refers to the European rules that will have to apply from next year. “I don’t hear anything that Mr Timmermans wants to do to limit the influx,” is the conclusion of Yesilgöz.
2 hours ago
Ministers busy with iPads, but you are looking at speakers in the meantime, not everyone in box K, the place where the cabinet members are in the room, is listening carefully. Physically, many a minister or state secretary is at least busy with what is for him or her.
For example, Minister Eelco Heinen (Finance) plays with a pen if he just doesn’t look at his phone. Many a minister attends a laptop or iPad. State Secretary Aukje de Vries (Foreign Trade) has a few sheets of paper.
Outgoing Prime Minister Dick Schoof does his best to keep his eyes off a screen. He looks at the speakers, in this case Timmermans and Bontenbal, as much as possible.
3 hours ago
Timmermans: If a limit is exceeded then you have to stand Timmermans has taken the floor. He first responds to the discussion that just took place between Yesilgöz and Jetten. “If the freedom of religion is disputed here, stand and count,” said the GL-PvdA leader. In this way he wants to show that everyone in the Netherlands counts.
Timmermans’ argument can count on little response. Bontenbal (CDA) does run to the microphone. He also sat down during Wilders’ contribution, but that does not mean that he agrees with the words of the PVV leader, explains Bontenbal.
“It is a dilemma. Sit down or say. But you can pronounce in many ways. Also outside of debates, in what you say and write. Or how you behave.”
3 hours ago
Why did Yesilgöz stay with Wilders’ input? Why did Yesilgöz stay with Wilders’ input this morning? Jetten does not understand that, given the tone of the PVV leader. “We should not normalize what is not normal,” says Jetten. “I see it as my task to get up when someone preaches hatred for two hours.”
But the VVD member did not interrupt Wilders once. “I want to debate with people who are willing to wear responsibleness. At Wilders you know: sooner or later he will always run away.”
But Jetten thinks that is a weakness. “Politics is also a wading struggle,” he says. So if Wilders says he stands up for the safety of women or gays, but in practice no proposals about this, then you have to say something about it. “It is the task of a politician to get up and contradict that.”
3 hours ago
Yesilgöz asks for an extension of burqa ban an extensive burqa ban can be introduced as quickly as possible, Yesilgöz asks the outgoing cabinet. She mentions wearing a burqa “one of the most visible expressions of clashing liberties and not respecting our liberal values”. The desire for a more extensive burqa ban is also in the VVD election program. The party also wants to make it punishable to force others to wear a burqa.
In the Netherlands, there is now a partial ban on wearing face -covering clothing. As a result, someone is not allowed to wear burqa in, for example, a hospital, school or train.
3 hours ago
Timmermans: ‘Help us bring those children to the Netherlands’ Timmermans also does an apple on Yesilgoz. “If you have to get a bullet out of the head with a child, specialized instruments will be needed. They don’t have them in the region.” According to doctors in Gaza there is a targeted shot on children, given the few shot wounds in the head or chest. De Volkskrant wrote about that earlier this week. “Think very carefully about it,” Timmermans told the VVD leader. “Help us get those children to the Netherlands.”
3 hours ago
VVD leader Yesilgöz, the second speaker, has been behind the pulpit for 2.5 hours. After her it is Timmermans’s turn (GL-PvdA). Experience shows that the number of interruptions during the debate is decreasing and that it goes much more smoothly after 8 p.m.
3 hours ago
VVD under fire to refuse Medical Evacuation Children from Gaza Ouwehand of the PvdD cannot help that Yesilgöz does not want to evacuate injured or sick children from Gaza to the Netherlands to help them here. The VVD believes that this can best happen in the region. Ouwehand thinks this is strange, because Ukrainian children are helped here. “It leaves the suspicion in itself that the VVD defends Yesilgöz Netanyahu,” says Ouwehand. Yesilgöz maintains that her party and the cabinet do a lot. “We should not pretend that one weighs the human suffering differently than the other.”
SP leader Dijk also wonders why these children cannot come to the Netherlands. “The fastest Anier to help these children is to vote them here,” says Dijk. He already announces that he will put a motion to the vote. The previous one about this was rejected with only one voice. “Yesilgöz says he understands that people are looking to make a difference.” But we can’t help hundreds of children here. “
4 hours ago
Dassen about Israel-course VVD: ‘Credibility overboard’ Volt leader Dassen starts about the situation in Gaza and the conclusion of a committee of inquiry of the United Nations that Israel commits genocide. Yesilgöz says he has not read the report. “What is the VVD planning to prevent us from throwing our credibility on the world stage completely overboard?” Asks Dassen. The VVD member does not accept this immediately. Yesilgöz does want to emphasize something else.
“The image that nothing is doing from the cabinet and the VVD is incorrect.” She lists a number of measures from the VVD. Like two Israeli ministers such as Persona explain non grata. “It’s a genocide,” says Dassen. “That is most serious that humanity can commit. Then it is quite a poor list of Yesilgöz.” He calls it “shocking” that the VVD is not willing to “put everything in mind that this will stop.”
4 hours ago
Yesilgöz does not regret the support of the Yesilgöz asylum amendment does not regret the support of VVD in the now much -discussed amendment of the PVV, she says in response to a question from NSC member Eddy van Hijum. PVV came up with an amendment on one of the asylum laws with which people staying in the Netherlands are punishable. That amendment was adopted, but not all parties seemed aware that all assistance was also punishable with illegal immigrants.
“I find it amazing to hear that Mrs. Yesilgöz does not regret,” says Van Hijum. After all, the law had to be amended, something that Yesilgöz calls “a technical adjustment”. But according to Van Hijum, that adjustment would not have been if his party, together with SGP, had not asked for further investigation into the amendment. Without that adjustment, the law would not have been adopted by the Senate, he emphasizes.
4 hours ago
The parties try to get VVD to participate in migration plans Multiple parties try to get Yesilgöz to participate in their plans, and that provides varying success. Bontenbal wants to talk about labor migration, and wonders if he can find VVD by his side for a plan from the CDA. The party wants to give municipalities the space to, if a company wants to settle in that municipality, to test whether that work really adds something. Yesilgöz can agree “absolutely” in that.
Jetten seems to be less successful with the VVD with his plan. D66 wants asylum seekers to be able to work from day one. But Yesilgöz mainly wants asylum seekers to hear if they can stay here or not. Then the asylum seekers who receive a residence permit can also work faster.
5 hours ago
‘This is how you help the country to the Penarie’ Timmermans interrumps Yesilgöz for the first time. He had expected some more self -reflection after the VVD was at the helm of the national administration for fifteen years. According to the GL-PvdA leader, Yesilgöz wants to return to a center-right cabinet. Such a cabinet dropped the VVD itself two years ago. “This is how you help the country to the Penarie,” says Timmermans. According to him, employers are also critical of the policy of the canceled years. “Political chaos is disastrous for the investment climate,” said business organization VNO-NCW this week.
Yesilgöz says that she wants to help companies. For example, by not increasing taxes, as GL-PVDA wants. This is mainly about polluting companies that receive an extra tax in the plans of Timmermans. Yesilgöz repeats her mantra: “Companies are not the ATM in the Netherlands.”
5 hours ago
Yesilgöz: ‘Climate policy has also become a safety policy’ Laurens Dassen (Volt) is very concerned about the cabinet’s climate policy. Yesterday, the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL) concluded that the climate goal before 2030 became virtually unfeasible. New cabinet plans To get closer to the legal goal have hardly made any difference in the past year.
“Climate policy has also become safety policy,” says Yesilgöz, who points to a changing world. The VVD certainly still has ambitions, but “you don’t have to go blindly for ambitions and forgetting realism,” she says.
5 hours ago
Ja21 and VVD once about the importance of companies Joost Eerdmans of JA21, Yesilgöz holds that companies are increasingly thinking about leaving the Netherlands. This is not only due to the last two years, and therefore to the previous cabinet, but also to the ten to fifteen years before. What does the VVD member think of that?
That is of course a buyer for Yesilgöz. The party is proud to stand up for entrepreneurs and to ensure a good business climate. That “all traffic lights are on red” for companies, as employers’ organization MKB-Nederland said this week, is not nice.
Just like Eerdmans, Yesilgöz is worried about this. “We are very close together,” the VVD member ultimately concludes. It may be clear that this interruption was intended to show that the parties fully agree on this point.
5 hours ago
Bontenbal is looking for collaboration with VVD CDA leader Bontenbal intervenes for the first time in the debate and clearly does not seek the confrontation with the VVD. Together with Yesilgöz, he wants to tackle the regulatory pressure. The outgoing cabinet must make an inventory of which rules are superfluous, so that the upcoming forming parties can get started immediately.
As expected, this fits perfectly in the street of Yesilgöz. She once again accompanies that VVD minister Karremans recently came up with a plan to delete five hundred lines.
5 hours ago
Yesilgöz about nitrogen plans: ‘Every step is one’ jetten (D66) wants to know from Yesilgöz what she thinks of the cabinet’s nitrogen plans. He points out the VVD leader to the great economic damage caused by the nitrogen crisis.
Outgoing agriculture minister Femke Wiersma came up with her supplementary package yesterday that should reduce emissions. To the frustration of Jetten there were few new plans, while Wiersma promised to come up with additional policy this spring.
“Every step in the right direction is one,” is the answer from Yesilgöz.
The room will soon be debating nitrogen again. Chances are that there will no longer be a majority for the course of Wiersma, now that NSC has also left the cabinet. Just like the VVD, the former government party was often critical of the lack of decisiveness. Yet they remained patient so far.
5 hours ago
VVD: Purchasing power law must help workers financially Yesilgöz is satisfied with “the sturdy budget” that is now there. There is a purchasing power increase for all income groups. NSC leader Eddy van Hijum responds to this. Because the VVD has included a “purchasing power law” in the election program, which states that “workers have to improve more every year in purchasing power than non-working people.”
The income gap between people who work and those who don’t work only gets bigger, says Van Hijum. Why would you want that, he wonders? And besides: non -working people are also people who cannot or are retired. According to Yesilgöz, the differences are not at all large. The VVD member therefore believes that working is not pays off. “We want to anchor that in the law.”
6 hours ago
VVD leader Yesilgöz focuses on responsibility The debate has again started with the contribution of Yesilgöz. The VVD leader immediately calls on the coalition and opposition to bear responsibility together. “We have to show that we take our task seriously.”
BBB leader Van der Plas already had the same kind of argument yesterday. She called on the opposition not to “riots” now that the outgoing cabinet is only leaning on 32 seats. Incidentally, it is one of the tasks of the opposition to make it difficult for a cabinet.
VVD and BBB are still in the government.
6 hours ago
Five parties more often in debates than PVV for the lunch break, Wilders (Volt) was attacked by the absence of the PVV in debates. Wilders denied this, but figures from the Central Information Point of the Lower House shows that there are five smaller parties that have been more often with plenary debates.
This is GL-PvdA, NSC, VVD, D66 and BBB. The latter two parties have nine and eight seats. That is almost thirty less than the PVV has.
The PVV is present in 79 percent of the 371 commission debates and in 53 percent of the plenary debates. In these figures no distinction is made between regular and final (two -minute debates), in which MPs can submit motions.
6 hours ago
Debate is hardly about Budget Memorandum The debate will start again. For the time being it is not about the Budget Memorandum, not very surprising. That actually rarely happens during the general political considerations. Even though those debates have been scheduled to talk about the cabinet plans for the coming year.
Party leaders mainly use the debate to bring their party points to the attention. After all, there will be elections in a few weeks. For example, PVV leader Wilders was mainly about his asylum agenda for the past two hours. And why he got out of the cabinet. The interruptions are also mainly party points.
During Prinsjesdag yesterday there was also little new policy. Logical, because the cabinet only consists of VVD and BBB. Those two parties only have 32 seats.
7 hours ago
Timmermans tries to get Wilders behind the plan again to treat seriously injured or sick children from Gaza in the Netherlands. That appears in vain: Wilders maintains that according to PVV, those children can be helped better in the region. Last week a motion to bring those children to the Netherlands was narrowly rejected.
7 hours ago
Stoffer (SGP) shares concerns about the wolf, as is often the case with the general political considerations, many different topics pass by. For example, SGP leader Stoffer wants to know from Wilders if he is sharing his worries about the wolf. The SGP believes that there is no room for the animal in the Netherlands.
The outgoing cabinet is working on tackling problem wolves, but the Chamber may explain this policy part controversially. That means that the government is not allowed to continue with the plans. Stoffer calls on Wilders not to agree, but Wilders does not want to share the PVV’s position.
7 hours ago
No interruptions from Yesilgöz for Wilders Wilders is now almost two hours. A lot more than the forty minutes for which he has registered. This is due to the many interruptions that the PVV leader receives. Remarkably, not from BBB leader Van der Plas and VVD member Yesilgöz.
This is particularly striking for Yesilgöz. The VVD member reproaches Wilders for running away from the cabinet and does not want to take responsibility. “A voice on Wilders is a lost voice,” she said at the party congress.
Since the break, Yesilgoz has been excluding the PVV for the next cabinet. Since then, the debates between Wilders and Yesilgöz have been venomous. Incidentally, the bond between the two party leaders was also somewhat hostile when they were still in the cabinet together.
8 hours ago
Bikker against Wilders: “Let’s guard religious freedom” after Wilders holds an argument against Islam, CU leader Bikker steps forward. In contrast to the PVV leader, it is not a danger to the Netherlands, unlike the PVV leader. On the contrary, she is worried that fewer and fewer people are rooted in a belief, and especially in the Christian faith.
“Let us start to maintain religious freedom. And no religions go bashen,” she says in the direction of Wilders. She does not want to go to a situation such as “in the Middle East where you as a Christian can’t go free on the street”.
8 hours ago
Wilders provoked to look wider than just asylum seekers Wilders reads a whole list with places where according to the PVV leader AZCs are. That number of “hundreds of AZCs” has grown because the Spreading Act has not been withdrawn, he believes. Currently, COA has 314 reception locations and there are still reception locations at municipalities themselves. Last year the COA had 304 reception locations.
That list gives him interruptions of Timmermans and Jetten, who are trying to provoke the PVV player to give his opinion about more than just asylum seekers. According to Timmermans, Wilders only talks about this to “deduce from the fact that he has not delivered anything” and the PVV player gives “a false image of our country”. For example, he points out Wilders that there are also a lot of nuisance and abuses around labor migrants.
Jetten uses it as a bridge to talk about the safety of Ukraine (and the people who fled from that country). According to the D66 member, Wilders is screaming for “90 percent”, but when he is asked about safety in Ukraine, Jetten gets “whispering”.
8 hours ago
Dennis Bergkamp gets a small roll in the debate Somehow Dennis Bergkamp has crept into the debate. Timmermans started with that when he started that he and Wilders came to the Chamber for the first time in 1998. “In that year, Bergkamp scored that nice goal against Argentina,” says Timmermans.
Moments later, Volt leader Dassen says that it might be time for new politics. “In 1998 I was only a little boy,” he tells the PVV leader. “You are still that,” Wilders immediately recalls. Laughter can be heard in the room. Chamber chairman Bosma suddenly mixes in the conversation. “To stay in football terms: this was a buyer.”
Wilders starts to laugh and takes a few steps from the pulpit. It is one of the few jolly moments in the so far sharp debate.
8 hours ago
Wilders denies that PVV is relatively often absent from Debates Volt leader Laurens Dassen wonders how Wilders can maintain that he has not had a share in the “political chaos” and points out that, among other things, the PVV “is never present with important debates”. Complaints about the absence of PVV people (who have 37 seats in the Chamber) also came from other opposition parties earlier. In addition, NOS and RTL, among others, concluded last summer on the basis of requested figures that PVV was relatively often absent compared to parties with fewer seats.
Wilders denies that and reads other figures requested by him. According to him, the figures are different because he does not count a continuation of a commission debate in which MPs can submit motions. But whether the presence of PVV is so in proportion to parties with fewer MPs, the PVV does not comment on that.
9 hours ago
Wilders would also have liked to keep the Zuyderland completely open, SP leader Dijk also tells Wilders that the PVV ministers in healthcare have done nothing. Such as keeping the Zuyderland Hospital in Heerlen fully open. Or why he did not adjust some taxes for the rich.
Wilders replies that some things just don’t always work. The Zuyderland Hospital would have preferred the PVV to have kept completely open, Wilders admits. In addition, he is not even even with many SP points. Such as the consideration of the inheritance tax.
9 hours ago
Jetten points out Wilders that he was the buttons, Rob Jetten (D66) also points out Wilders that he could have taken responsibility as a coalition party. He repeats Wilders’ words that “the Netherlands would be on the edge of national suicide”. “Quite texts from the man who said a year ago that the sun would shine again in the Netherlands,” says Jetten. “In the year that the sun would shine again, everything went wrong”, but it was Wilders who was on the buttons, the D66 leader emphasizes.
Wilders repeats that he has been opposed by other parties. “If agreements have been made and we are being opposed, then say ‘we will look at it, but I will go to the voter again’.”
9 hours ago
Wilders believes that he has been opposed in the Coalition Wilders and Timmermans are now very fierce against each other. The GL-PVDA leader reproaches Wilders for the chance to make policy when he stepped into the cabinet, but that failed. “You didn’t do anything zero Nada.”
But Wilders thinks he is “opposed” in the coalition. In addition, he mainly points to NSC. For example, he was not a prime minister and no emergency legislation was used to take far -reaching asylum measures. PVV minister Faber was responsible for that emergency legislation, but she found no legal substantiation for that.
9 hours ago
Wilders: ‘I learned from the PvdA’ Wilders responds with a noticeable incident from the past. In 2012, PvdA member Samsom negotiated with VVD leader Rutte for a cabinet. That cabinet remained sitting and made important reforms, but the voter mercilessly punished the PvdA because they were painful measures for the party. “I learned from the PvdA,” says Wilders about that. “The voter saw that the PvdA was fooled.” That is why he now got out of the cabinet because he thinks he can no longer give his voters what he has promised.
Timmermans cites the woman from the previous campaign, which Wilders said that she “can’t wait” to abolish the Eigern risk in healthcare. That was an important moment, the PVV started to rise in the polls and became the largest party. In the meantime, nothing has happened to the deductible. “That lady couldn’t wait? She can wait another ten years to you. You don’t care,” Timmermans told Wilders.
9 hours ago
Timmermans about Wilders: ‘You are a runaway’ GL-PVDA leader Frans Timmermans blames Wilders that he “promises heaven”, but at the end of the ride does not blame others and blames others. “Again by blaming NSC.”
“You are a runaway,” says Timmermans. “The country has been standing still for years and the trust in politics has plummeted. That is because of the PVV, as the largest party in the Chamber.”
9 hours ago
Van Baarle clashes with Wilders about Baarle’s language use asks Wilders if he realizes that “with his words he ensures that Dutch mosques, refugees, women with a headscarf, are harassed in this country and are unsafe?”. He has a map with him that have received several Dutch mosques, which contains a text smeared with red liquid in which it is said that “Islam is no better than Nazism”.
“I don’t quit anywhere,” Wilders was’ answer that. Yet he does distance himself from “intimidating and threatening anyone, including to mosques”. “But I keep naming the truth here,” says the PVV player.
9 hours ago
Van Hijum: Wilders had the chance of strict asylum policy “Everyone thinks we should stop the inflow and the criminal rig must leave the country”, Wilders continues. According to him, immigrants are over -represented in sexual crimes and assaults. The PVV wants a strict asylum policy after the elections.
That could have been there before the PVV left the cabinet, NSC leader Eddy van Hijum Wilders is ahead. “Wilders had the chance to turn the strictest asylum policy ever into policy. Only the PVV asylum minister was concerned about ribbons and outings for asylum seekers to Efteling,” says Van Hijum.
9 hours ago
Wilders: ‘We lose our country’ PVV leader Geert Wilders kicks off. He does not start with his written text, but with an email he received this morning from a 28-year-old woman. She was mistreated during her work on a garbage truck, she writes. Because they were Moroccans according to the Mailer, it is typically “the Netherlands of today”.
“Not integrating by non-Western immigrants makes our country more unsafe.” Wilders often reads emails in the plenary debate hall, often with this meaning. “We lose our country,” he says.
9 hours ago
It was surprisingly enough, but after a few minutes, Think leader Stephan comes