PVV, the far-right party of Geert Wilders emerged as winner of the Dutch parliamentary election on 22 November. PVV has campaigned on an anti-Islam and anti-immigration ticket and is also known as Eurosceptic and disparaging about the need to fight climate change. The party is set to gain 35 of the 150 seats and would need to form a coalition with several other parties to be able to form a majority government. All the other major parties have ruled out negotiating with PVV for a government led by Geert Wilders. That said, some might still be willing to negotiate with the aim of forming a coalition in which PVV would be junior partner despite having the highest number of seats.
A labour-green alliance led by former climate commissioner Timmermans came second in the election, with 25 seats, followed by centre-right VVD (the dominant party in the outgoing government coalition) at 24, and a new centrist party NSC at 19. A period of complex and most likely lengthy negotiations will now follow (this might take many months) to try to form a winning coalition around a joint programme. Once that is in place and ministers are appointed, the prospective prime minister will present the joint programme for the parliament’s approval.
While PVV is clearly no friend of climate policy, the need for any prospective government partners to agree on a compromise programme makes it unlikely that that their win will lead to an upending of Dutch energy and climate policies. …
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