MPs to vote on suspending FvD leader Baudet for failing to report ancillary positions

Forum voor Democratie leader Thierry Baudet might get suspended from participating in parliamentary debates for a week. On Tuesday afternoon, the Tweede Kamer will vote on a proposal to suspend him for that period because he refused to properly declare his additional positions. The Tweede Kamer has drawn up its own rules for this, and MPs are obliged to adhere to those rules.

If the Kamer votes to suspend Baudet, he can still vote during that period. Based on its survey, NOS reports that the suspension proposal will probably get majority support. The CDA and VVD are leaning towards supporting the suspension but want to first discuss it in their factions on Tuesday.

According to the Tweede Kamer’s Integrity Investigation Board, Baudet has not declared that he is a board member of FvD and director of the publishing house THPB Media B.V. Both positions involve commercial activities. Last week, the Board recommended that Baudet be suspended as he was previously reprimanded for the same reason.

The Board also reprimanded FvD MPs Freek Jansen and Gideon van Meijeren for failing to declare their ancillary positions and income.

If the vote passes, this will be the first time a parliamentarian is suspended, partly because the Kamer has only recently become familiar with this instrument.

Baudet was recently excluded from a debate in the Tweede Kamer, the lower house of the Dutch parliament, after he insinuated that Finance Minister Sigrid Kaag was a spy. The entire Cabinet, which was in the Kamer for the Budget Debate, left parliament in protest. Baudet later refused to take back his insinuations, after which Kamer president Vera Bergkamp denied him a chance to speak.

On Monday, PVV leader Geert Wilders spoke out against suspending Baudet. He said it would be “an affront to democracy” and “an act that would not be out of place for the ayatollahs in Iran.”