Cabinet will continue despite intensifying division; NSC members will remain
The governing coalition parties narrowly averted the collapse of the Cabinet on Friday, just 136 days after Prime Minister Dick Schoof's first Cabinet was sworn into office. Only NSC member Nora Achahbar will step down as reported earlier in the day, but the six other NSC-backed Cabinet members will remain, sources close to emergency coalition talks told RTL Nieuws, NOS, and ANP.
It emerged Friday afternoon that Achahbar, the State Secretary for Benefits and Customs, was going to step down from the Cabinet. At least some of the other six members from NSC were also thinking about pulling out of the Cabinet, prompting an emergency meeting between Schoof and the leaders of coalition parties PVV, VVD, NSC and BBB. It was not immediately known if NSC demanded specific conditions in agreeing to remain part of the Cabinet.
Achahbar was reportedly mortified by racist and discriminatory remarks made by her colleagues during Monday's Council of Ministers meeting. That was the first meeting of Cabinet members after the rioting in Amsterdam last week. The violence was connected to the Europa League football match between Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv. Some Maccabi hooligans were first accused of vulgar chants glorifying the death of Palestinians, desecrating a Palestinian flag, and vandalizing a taxicab.
After the match on Thursday, large groups gathered to hunt down, harass, and assault Maccabi supporters throughout Amsterdam. The violence was motivated not only by retribution, but also by anti-Semitism and anti-Israeli sentiment, Amsterdam authorities said. A total of up to 35 people were injured, five of whom were hospitalized, and 62 people were arrested that day. Several others were taken into custody on the days that followed.
During the Cabinet meeting at the start of the week, several politicians made discriminatory remarks about people with a family background in Islam and those with a ethnically diverse background, sources told several news outlets. For Achahbar, it was particularly offensive.
The NSC politician was not only born in Moroccan, but she has also worked to support unaccompanied minors who request asylum in the Netherlands. As a state secretary, she worked to resolve the long-running government scandal regarding families who were racially profiled in the tax office's childcare benefits scandal.
Achahbar reportedly felt that the stances held by at least some of those in the other three coalition parties, the PVV, VVD and BBB, were a violation of prior pledges. The coalition between the four parties was already shaky, particularly because of prior statements by PVV leader Geert Wilders believed to be racist and discriminatory.
The coalition parties agreed that they would always follow the democratic rule of law in the Netherlands and the Dutch Constitution. Achahbar felt that other Cabinet members had violated this pledge, sources told NOS. The Monday meeting was the final straw for her, and she decided to wait until Friday's Council of Ministers meeting to announce her intention.
It was the third time in three months that the Cabinet has been brought to the brink of collapse, though this most recent incident seemed to be the closest to the coalition falling apart. Talks ahead of the release of the Cabinet's budget proposal for 2025 and the outline of its full-term plans grew intensely heated. It led to shouting matches with NSC leader Pieter Omtzigt, who has since gone on sick leave believed to be due to burnout symptoms.
The Cabinet again was deeply divided over whether the influx of asylum seekers in the Netherlands was actually a crisis necessitating an emergency order, or if the situation could be handled by submitting a bill to Parliament. The emergency order would have been an attempt by the Cabinet to undermine established law without approval from Parliament. This despite steadily declining asylum figures, and the option of submitting a bill to Parliament with a request it be handled urgently.
