Schoof I Cabinet topples after series of near-collapses, controversies
After 336 days in office, the Schoof I Cabinet has collapsed. The coalition of PVV, VVD, NSC, and BBB was unstable from the start, taking eight months and several false starts to form at all. The past eleven months saw multiple threats by PVV leader Geert Wilders to topple the government, several public clashes between the party leaders on social media, and NSC leader first suffering a burnout and then leaving politics altogether.
Prime Minister Dick Schoof’s weekly press conferences following Cabinet meetings often dedicated significant time to address questions about hostility and mistrust between the coalition parties, and the contentious atmosphere fueled by Wilders from his position in the Tweede Kamer, the lower house of Parliament.
Despite being the leader of the largest party in the Tweede Kamer, political maneuvers blocked Wilders from taking the role of prime minister. Schoof, who previously led Dutch intelligence services, was the third choice after a research and patent scandal took down the second choice, Ronald Plasterk.
The Cabinet was off to a shaky start and faced its first near-collapse during budget talks in August 2024, less than two months after taking office. The VVD and NSC clashed hard about purchasing power, to the point of an emotional breakdown by Omtzigt and VVD leader Dilan Yeşilgöz suggesting that it was time to throw in the towel.
The next crisis followed in November when NSC State Secretary Nora Achahbar and two NSC parliamentarians resigned. Achahbar said she resigned over polarization, but reports said she stepped down due to racist remarks made by other Cabinet members in the aftermath of riots and attacks on Israeli football supporters in Amsterdam. Schoof managed to keep the government together and promised for the umpteenth time that there was no racism in his Cabinet.
In December, Wilders threatened to pull out of the coalition for the first time, saying the PVV would make no further concessions on the asylum policy. This followed the opposition shooting down some budget cuts on education and the Cabinet scrambling to find that money elsewhere. Don’t look at the budget for asylum measures, Wilders warned.
He repeated his threat in February, saying that the Cabinet was taking too long to implement the “strictest asylum policy ever” that it promised in its coalition agreement. Wilders had to give up on his plan to declare an asylum crisis, and the Council of State had just advised against submitting the two bills that were the compromise that kept the Cabinet standing: the Two-Status System Act and the Asylum Emergency Measures Act. Wilders' threat conveniently ignored that it was his Minister, Marjolein Faber (Asylum and Migration), who was responsible for implementing this policy.
In the four months that followed, Faber created mainly controversy - by refusing to sign off on award ribbons for five volunteers at asylum shelters and banning child asylum seekers from visiting a theme park for a day out, among other things - and made little progress in implementing a stricter asylum policy.
So, Wilders presented a 10-point plan for an even stricter asylum policy, without consulting the other coalition parties about it, and again threatened to topple the Cabinet. 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. The other party leaders refused to sign his plan, and this time, he followed through.
Wilders pulled the PVV from the coalition and his Ministers from the Cabinet. The remaining Ministers will meet at 1:30 p.m. to discuss how to proceed. The expectation is that Prime Minister Schoof will hand in the Cabinet's resignation to the King, and new elections will follow.
