Far-right PVV, left-wing GL-PvdA tied in last poll before European elections
The PVV and GroenLinks-PvdA are tied for the biggest party in the European Parliament, each with 8 seats in the last poll before the elections. The parties are at about the same level as a week ago. The poll was conducted by EenVandaag and Ipsos I&O on Wednesday, one day before Netherlands residents cast their votes for the new Members of the European Parliament.
In the previous European elections in 2019, the PvdA came out as the Netherlands’ largest party with 6 seats. GroenLinks then won 3 seats. Now, they’re participating as one party and polled to win 8 seats. The PVV currently only has 1 seat in the European Parliament, allocated to the far-right party due to the redistribution of seats after Brexit.
The VVD currently has 5 seats in the European Parliament and holds them in this poll. The CDA halved their current seats coming to 2 in the poll. The D66 also stands at 2 seats, equal to what they have. The NSC and BBB didn’t participate in 2019. NSC is polled to win 2 seats, BBB 1.
The BBB, SP, Volt, and PvdD are on the edge of a seat. However, due to the poll's uncertainty, they could win anything between 0 and 2. ChristenUnie, SGP, and FvD just missed the electoral threshold in this poll.
In the last television debate before the election on NOS on Wednesday evening, the leaders of the nine largest participating Dutch parties had their say on topics in which Europe plays a big role, such as climate, international security, migration, agriculture, and social security.
The VVD took fire on migration. D66 leader Gerben-Jan Gerbrandy compared the coalition agreement of the PVV, VVD, NSC, and BBB with the VVD’s position in the European Union. He accused the VVD of advocating in the EU for a European solution to regulate migration but opposing the same solutions from the Netherlands. “The ink is not yet dry, and this party leader has thrown the European pact in the trash,” Gerbrandy said to VVD leader Malik Azmani.
The leaders of the VVD, D66, and GroenLinks-PvdA did not say in the debate how many migrants they think Europe can handle, but they did call the current number too high. “We will always have people who want to come to Europe,” said GroenLinks-PvdA leader Bas Eickhout.
D66 leader Gerbrandy called for more European ambition in tackling the climate crisis. He wants the EU to achieve climate-neutrality by 2040 instead of 2050. NSC leader Dirk Gotink thinks that Europe has already taken a gigantic step with the Green Deal. BBB leader Sander Smit said that the farmers’ party wants a “realistic and feasible climate policy.”
CDA, BBB, and Volt all said that farmers and nature should not be pitted against each other in the fight against climate change. Volt leader Anna Strolenberg wants the money going to agriculture to be distributed differently so that farmers can produce more sustainably. The CDA agreed with this. CDA leader Tom Berendsen said: “We must achieve the goals of the climate agreement. That is a promise to our children.”
While debating international security, the VVD, SP, and PVV seemed to agree that Ukraine needs more support. “Otherwise, Putin will only get closer,” VVD leader Azmani said. “We need to build a strong defense industry to deter Putin.”
PVV leader Sebastiaan Stöteler took fire on this topic with accusations that the PVV wants to “hollow out” the EU from within. “With a divided Europe, you destroy our own economy,” GL-PvdA leader Eichout said. Stöteler defended his far-right party by saying the PVV wants to cooperate economically in the EU but is against the European climate policy. According to him, the United States and China are doing much better economically than the EU, and the Netherlands should look at that.
NSC leader Gotink said that Europe is “weak” when it comes to competing with the U.S. and China. “It is important that we stop selling off our companies and knowledge. We used to be the world’s pharmacist and now we have a medicines shortage.” CDA and SP also argued for more attention to Europe’s own industry.