Wilders wants experts in immigration and sustainability to lead Cabinet formation talks

PVV leader Geert Wilders nominated Elbert Dijkgraaf and Richard van Zwol to lead the next round of Cabinet formation talks. The two are experts in the fields of immigration and sustainability, and the impact those issues have on the economy, business climate, and housing. The issues have been hotly contested, and are among the chasms the four parties in the Cabinet formation process have yet to bridge. The bitter rhetoric about immigration and recruiting workers and students abroad has also been attributed to a possible fall in the country's global standing.

Van Zwol recently chaired a committee that advised the Dutch government to aim for “moderate” population growth to no more than 20 million people in 2050 if it wants a solid chance to guarantee sufficient housing, healthcare, and education. Last year, he criticized the Rutte IV government for reserving too little money for dealing with future crises and moving too many financial deficits forward for future Cabinets to deal with.

He is a former secretary-general at three different ministries: General Affairs, Home Affairs and Kingdom Relations, and Finance. He previously chaired the CDA’s scientific policy office, and is now a member of the Advisory division of the Council of State. Additionally, he is the current supervisory board chair for the Dutch office of consultancy firm EY.

Dijkgraaf has focused his recent work as a full professor of economics about how connections with foreign labor and international markets can help resolve the ongoing labor shortages in the Netherlands. He also examines different attributes to circular economies, and government handling of waste management and the environment.

He co-founded and leads the Economics of Sustainability program at Erasmus University in Rotterdam. In that program, he researchers and lectures on how economics and growth can be linked to the 17 Sustainable Development Goals from the United Nations. He has been a professor there since 2009, and obtained his doctorate at the university five years earlier. Dijkgraaf spent nearly nine years as a parliamentarian for the conservative Christian party SGP, and also lead their youth wing.

All four parties currently in the Cabinet formation process - PVV, VVD, NSC, and BBB - want to place strict limits on immigration, but the parties disagree on how to tackle the issue. That has sparked major concerns among big businesses in the Netherlands, who worry they will no longer be able to recruit highly-skilled and highly-educated workers from abroad.

They are also concerned about the political demonization of university courses taught in English, and policies to restrict international student admissions at a time when the Netherlands desperately needs them for a variety of roles, including research, innovation, finance and development. Because of this, Boskalis announced it would move part of its head office functions to Abu Dhabi out of concerns for the negative political attitudes towards immigrants and expatriates.

ASML has also signaled its intent to examine more expansion abroad instead of in the Netherlands. The company is the third largest publicly-traded business in Europe, based on its market capitalization. The largest telecom in the country, KPN, has also raised the issue.

Finding a way to ease those concerns while staying true to their anti-immigration platform may be part of the reason why Wilders nominated Dijkgraaf and Van Zwol to lead the next round of talks. The Tweede Kamer, the lower house of the Dutch parliament, will vote on their appointment later on Wednesday at the conclusion of the debate into the report on the past phase of coalition talks.

The nominations will likely get the support of the four parties in the coalition talks, which will be enough for a majority. Thus far, none of the moderators who actually led Cabinet formation talks have been from the four parties involved in the negotiations. The two people who previously lead rounds of talks, Ronald Plasterk and Kim Putters, have long been associated with the Dutch Labour party, PvdA.

PVV Senator Gom van Strien was the first person nominated by Wilders and approved by the Tweede Kamer. However he resigned before talks had started after allegations against him about business fraud and deception surfaced in the media.