GL-PvdA leader Timmermans finds politcal gap with VVD "unbridgeable. at the moment"
GroenLinks-PvdA leader Frans Timmermans is open to working with the VVD in a Cabinet after the election, but only if the liberal party moves away from the far-right and more towards the center. The substantive gap between the two parties is “unbridgeable at the moment,” he said when announcing that GroenLinks and PvdA mergers had voted for the two left-wing parties to merge next year.
After the election, GroenLinks-PvdA will have to look for majorities with parties in the center of the political spectrum, Timmermans said on Thursday, according to ANP. The VVD is currently not in the center, he said.
Timmermans referred to a letter VVD leader Dilan Yeşilgöz wrote to her party last week, in which she portrayed GroenLinks-PvdA as irresponsible and radically left-wing. She also said that she did not regret the failed cooperation with the PVV. Timmermans worries that the VVD has only distanced itself from Geert Wilders’ far-right party for practical reasons and may turn back on that after the election.
The GroenLinks-PvdA leader said he does not understand the VVD’s attitude toward the PVV. “Apparently, you weren’t allowed to exclude Wilders’ voters, but you were allowed to exclude GroenLinks-PvdA voters,” he said, according to EenVandaag.
He stressed that he is not excluding the VVD. GroenLinks-PvdA only excludes working with the far-right parties PVV and FvD “for reasons of principle.” He firmly believes that “programmatic agreements” must be possible with other parties, though the gap between GroenLinks-PvdA and VVD seems unbridgeable at the moment.
Whether that will change depends on the “socio-economic choices [the VVD] makes” but also on “the reflection they have on the cooperation with the PVV.” And whether the liberals are willing to come back from the far right.
Timmermans thinks he can move the right-wing center parties in his direction if GroenLinks-PvdA achieves a good result in the election. “I know one thing for sure: if we’re not big and strong enough, the right will start looking at each other again. It is my job to make GroenLinks-PvdA so big that others have to take a step in our direction.”
