New Cabinet's first debate with parliament today; First ever debate for PM Schoof

One day after getting sworn in by King Willem-Alexander, the new Dutch Cabinet will debate their plans for the coming years with the Tweede Kamer today. It will be new Prime Minister Dick Schoof’s first-ever parliamentary debate.

Opposition parties have many questions about the PVV, VVD, NSC, and BBB’s main lines agreement, the plans of which the new Cabinet members will have to work out in more detail. The debate is also an introduction between parliamentarians and Schoof, who has never participated in a parliamentary debate before.

D66 leader Rob Jetten is curious to see how Schoof will do, he told NOS. “Schoof is an unelected official who is suddenly in the Torentje,” he said. The Torentje is the Prime Minister’s office on the Binnenhof in The Hague. “The question is from which norms and values he will do his work, and how he will approach things and shape the collaboration.” Jetten wonders whether Schoof will be “a Prime Minister who can act according to his findings or whether he will be on Wilders’ leash.”

GroenLinks-PvdA leader Frans Timmermans is also looking forward to seeing what this debate and the coming months will reveal. “We haven’t heard much from Schoof yet, so I’m very curious to see what he comes up with.” Timmermans thinks the PVV, VVD, NSC, and BBB leaders will “set the lines” and that the PVV leader Geert Wilders will “firmly hold” the reins in parliament.

The new Cabinet members also had their first interviews with the press after their swearing-in on Tuesday.

Schoof told ANP that he expects to make his own decisions when representing the Netherlands in the European Council, saying it would be “very strange” if he had to constantly consult the leaders of the coalition parties. To what extent that will be true remains to be seen. The coalition agreement includes many agreements on doing business with Brussels. For example, the coalition parties want to pay less money to the EU, they want an exemption for the Netherlands from the European asylum policy, and they want the EU to relax the nature and nitrogen rules that hinder Dutch farmers.

Minister Caspar Veldkamp of Foreign Affairs (NSC) told the media that he is ready for tough negotiations in Europe but will remember that “you are connected to each other” and will have to work together. He doesn’t expect to need a “charm offensive” with Islamic countries due to Wilders and his PVV’s anti-Islam stances. “I don’t get the impression that there should be anything to fix or anything very special to be explained.”

Veldkamp also said that he had already spoken with his American counterpart, Antony Blinken. “We emphasized the strong relations between the Netherlands and the United States and the many areas in which we work closely together,” he wrote on X, mentioning topics including Ukraine and the Middle East.

Minister Reinette Klever for Foreign Trade and Development Aid (PVV), who once argued as parliamentarian for the Netherlands to halt all development aid, refused to distance herself from previous statements about “repopulation” and who previously dressed up in full blackface as Zwarte Piet for the broadcaster Ongehoord Nederland, told NOS that she expects African countries will welcome her “with open arms.” The discussion around whether Zwarte Piet is racist is “a cultural thing,” she said. “We are very concerned with that here, but those abroad aren’t, are they?” According to Klever, “every culture has its own things.” She thinks that African countries will welcome her because she brings Dutch companies to do business with.

Minister Marjolein Faber of Asylum and Migration (PVV) told ANP that she was impressed by the knowledge and commitment of the civil servants who will work in her new Ministry and hadn’t noticed any hesitance to work under the PVV. “I will really need them to implement the main lines agreement,” she said. The agreement promised the strictest asylum policy ever. “I have confidence, and I am very much looking forward to it. Together, we can create a stronger Netherlands,” said Faber.