GroenLinks-PvdA leader Frans Timmermans calls Wilders a “Putin admirer”

Radical right-wing parties are a threat to the rule of law and thus play into the hands of Russian President Vladimir Putin, says GroenLinks-PvdA leader Frans Timmermans. In the biennial Banning Lecture, Timmermans calls it "urgent" that "Wilders will not bear direct responsibility for our national defense and security. I would not like to place my fate in the hands of Putin's admirers, neither here nor elsewhere."

At the beginning of his speech, Timmermans describes Putin's strategy to come to power as "mafioso" and Putin's Russia as "a direct and permanent threat to peace and security on the European continent."

Timmermans then involved radical right parties in that threat: "Putin is a pioneer, example, and hero for almost all radical right movements in Europe." Such parties benefit from division, according to the left-wing party leader. He warns against "unfeasible proposals" from PVV and BBB, which "only act as political bait."

"It is not a coincidence that the PVV wants to end our Public Broadcast Corporation," says Timmermans. "This party is part of a worldwide movement that wants control over the truth and the story we tell ourselves."

Timmermans named the death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny and the comments of PVV MP Joeri Pool as examples of radical right threats. Pool criticized the Dutch military aid to Ukraine and said, "These administrators are playing Russian roulette with our national security."

Wilders cheered Putin a few years ago but has recently distanced himself somewhat from the Russian dictator. Shortly after Navalny passed away, Wilders tweeted: "Horrible. Opposition leader Navalny dies in a barbaric penal colony of a barbaric regime."

The Banning lecture is named after Willem Banning, a preacher and one of the founders of the PvdA; it is organized every two years by the social democratic Banning Association. Timmermans is the fourth person to present the lecture.