Is this the end for Schoof I? Coalition parties meeting again on Wilders' asylum demands

The coalition parties PVV, VVD, NSC, and BBB will gather again around 9:00 a.m. to see if they can keep the Schoof I Cabinet standing. After a similar meeting on Monday, it became clear that PVV leader Geert Wilders would not take the out that the other parties gave him and back down with his legally unfeasible asylum demands.

“It does not look good,” and “we have a serious problem,” Wilders said after the emergency meeting in his office in parliament on Monday. If the PVV, the largest coalition party, pulls out, the Schoof I Cabinet won’t have a majority in either parliament or the Senate.

Last week Monday, Wilders presented a 10-point plan for an even stricter asylum policy, without consulting the other coalition parties about it. His list contained several measures that experts consider legally unfeasible, like a complete asylum stop, closing shelters, halting family reunification, and deporting Syrian asylum seekers.

Last night, the other three coalition parties drew a line, telling Wilders that they will not break the coalition agreement to add new asylum measures, NOS reports. Wilders and his far-right PVV can work on the asylum measures already agreed upon, many of which are very similar to the ones on his list. Asylum plans from the coalition agreement will meet no resistance from them, the VVD, NSC, and BBB said. So it is up to PVV Minister Marjolein Faber of Asylum and Migration to speed things up.

But Wilders didn’t take the out presented to him. He wants party leaders Dilan Yeşilgöz (VVD), Nicolien van Vroonhoven (NSC), and Caroline van der Plas (BBB) to “now” put their signatures under his ten-point plan.

It is unusual in a coalition to come up with additions to agreements made, especially if those agreements took months of difficult negotiations to reach. Asylum was one of the sticking points in the PVV, VVD, NSC, and BBB cabinet formation talks last year. “If you take out one stone, more stones will start to rumble,” NSC leader Van Vroonhoven said about returning to the negotiation table on this sensitive topic.

VVD leader Yeşilgöz said she didn’t even know what to negotiate about before Monday’s meeting, because the coalition agreement already contains a package of strict asylum measures, and it was up to the PVV to “sort it out,” referring to Faber. "If it means that you just want to drop everything, then you should say so," said Yeşilgöz. But she would find that unnecessary and "super irresponsible."

This is not the first time Wilders threatened a Cabinet crisis if he did not get his way on asylum. So far, he has not followed through on these threats.

But this time may be different, according to NOS political reporter Lars Geerts. Wilders himself has cut off his only escape route by continuing to insist on these unfeasible demands. “The door seems closed for Wilders to make a dignified turn and move on,” he said.

PVV Ministers and parliamentarians have been complaining that they are getting very little done, and Wilders is realizing that participation in this Cabinet does not necessarily mean quick results. “That is why the signals are on red. This coalition is hanging by a thread,” Geerts said.