No Quarter: ‘Firebrand’ Dutch Far-Right Leader Offers Solutions But No Compromise
NEED TO KNOW
No Quarter: ‘Firebrand’ Dutch Far-Right Leader Offers Solutions But No Compromise
NETHERLANDS
Last month, Dutch far-right, anti-Islam, populist, Eurosceptic politician Geert Wilders was getting frustrated: He believed the conservative political coalition running the Netherlands was moving too slowly to crack down on migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers.
After all, his Party for Freedom (PVV) won 23 percent of the vote in the November 2023 election, the largest share, partly because of their hardline stance on the immigration issue. Meanwhile, their 37 seats were necessary to maintain the coalition’s majority, giving the party tremendous power. But their colleagues were dragging their feet in deploying the military to stop migrants and on measures to reject all new asylum seekers.
As a result, Wilders pulled his Party for Freedom ministers from the coalition, collapsing the government.
“The PVV promised voters the strictest asylum policy ever,” including a proposal to “close the borders to asylum-seekers,” Wilders said. After his coalition partners refused to approve those plans, “I had no choice but to say: We rescind support for this Cabinet.”
Other officials were dismayed at the timing.
“I have told party leaders repeatedly in recent days that the collapse of the cabinet would be unnecessary and irresponsible,” said Prime Minster Dick Schoof in the emergency cabinet meeting. “We are facing major challenges both nationally and internationally that require decisiveness from us.”
As the Guardian explained, Schoof offered to resign his position but then remained in office as a caretaker prime minister at the request of the Dutch King Willem-Alexander. New elections will likely be held in the fall.
Until then, the Dutch have a lame-duck government.
Wilders’ critics, meanwhile, are already claiming that his decision reflects how he’s not really interested in the hard work of politics and compromise to enact policy changes, wrote the Associated Press. “You turned your back on these people,” said Socialist Party lawmaker Jimmy Dijk during a recent parliamentary debate, referring to Party for Freedom voters who cast their ballots based on Wilders’ campaign platform.
Writing in Foreign Policy magazine, the American Enterprise Institute’s Stan Veuger.
“Wilders pulled the plug on the first government that his party was allowed to fully participate in…(but) it is a government that should never come into existence,” wrote Veuger. “The nicest thing one can say about it is that it accomplished nothing, but even on these generous terms it is a strong candidate for worst postwar Dutch government.”
In the meantime, Schoof has been busy.
As he welcomed American President Donald Trump and European leaders for a NATO meeting in the Dutch city of The Hague last week, he also sealed a $586 million deal between the Dutch and Ukrainian defense industries to build 600,000 drones as well as provide a $200 million aid package for Ukraine to fund 100 drone-detection radars, 20 medical evacuation vehicles, and other equipment, according to Reuters.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was in The Hague to thank Schoof personally, noted Ukrainian National News.
Domestically, officials under Schoof have announced that children under age 15 should refrain from using social media like TikTok and Instagram, citing “psychological and physical problems among kids, including panic attacks, depression, and difficulties sleeping,” reported Euronews.
Strengthening European security and stringent public health guidelines are not Wilders’ cup of tea, say analysts. But, he’s out of power, for now. Most expect him to return in some capacity.
“He will try to create a narrative that it was the established parties and elite institutions that made it impossible for him to get things done,” Sarah de Lange, a political scientist at the University of Amsterdam, told the Economist.
However, there are 15 parties in the legislature. In this kind of politically fragmented landscape, the only way to get things done is to compromise, a skill he lacks, observers say.
“Despite being a veteran opposition politician, he lacks a vital skill set in a system of proportional representation: he cannot compromise nor build coalitions,” wrote UnHerd, noting that his approval ratings have dropped dramatically since his party won the election. “The man often called a ‘firebrand’ has exploded what is likely to be his only shot at the Dutch government.”
THE WORLD, BRIEFLY
US and Vietnam Reach Trade Deal To Avert Tariff Clash
VIETNAM
The United States and Vietnam reached a trade agreement Wednesday, just days before the Trump administration’s July 9 tariff deadline, a deal observers say establishes a template for future US trade negotiations with other countries – and escalates tensions with China, the Washington Post reported Thursday.
Under the agreement, the US will impose a 20 percent tariff on Vietnamese goods, a significant decrease from the 46 percent rate announced in April.
Washington will also apply a separate 40 percent levy on goods deemed to be “transshipped” through Vietnam – referring to products originating from other countries, such as China, that are rerouted through Vietnam to evade higher US tariffs.
Vietnam will also provide “preferential market access” to some US goods, including certain makes of automobiles.
The announcement marks the first full trade pact the Trump administration has signed with an Asian country since the April 2 “Liberation Day” tariff hikes, and comes amid a 90-day freeze on reciprocal tariffs.
Though the Vietnamese government has yet to confirm the specifics of the agreement, analysts said the deal offers short-term clarity while introducing long-term uncertainty – particularly around how “transshipment” will be defined and enforced.
Vietnam is heavily reliant on US trade, but the country’s supply chains remain deeply interlinked with China, especially in electronics and manufacturing. Economists have warned that broad enforcement could damage legitimate Vietnamese exports and threaten more than two percent of the country’s gross domestic product.
Other Asian economies, including Malaysia and Thailand, are expected to face similar scrutiny over transshipment practices.
On Thursday, Beijing reacted sharply to the deal, with officials saying they “firmly oppose any party reaching a deal at the expense of China’s interests” and would “resolutely take countermeasures,” Channel News Asia wrote.
Meanwhile, analysts said the US-Vietnam deal may now serve as a model for agreements the US is attempting to make with other Asian countries, including India, Japan, and South Korea.
Some analysts believe Trump’s 20 percent benchmark will become the standard, unless negotiators can secure better terms in the coming days, CNBC noted.
European officials and businesses are watching the developments closely, with observers suggesting that the European Union is unlikely to get tariff-free access under Trump.
Trump has previously proposed tariffs as high as 50 percent on EU goods, while the bloc has threatened countermeasures against the US.
Never Again: South Korea Revises Martial Law Rules
SOUTH KOREA
South Korea’s lawmakers on Thursday voted to revise rules governing the imposition of martial law, following the declaration of military rule by former President Yoon Suk Yeol in December that set off more than six months of political crisis, Reuters reported.
The new rules bar any attempt to prevent lawmakers from entering the National Assembly and also prohibit military personnel and police from entering the building without the Speaker’s approval.
Following Yoon’s declaration of martial law last year, lawmakers were forced to scale the walls of the National Assembly, to bypass soldiers who encircled the building and barred access, in order to vote down the resolution, the BBC wrote.
Yoon’s move plunged South Korea into a political crisis, which led to the impeachment and arrest of Yoon and other officials and a snap election in June. He is currently on trial for insurrection.
In June, member of the opposition Lee Jae-myung became the country’s new president.
However, South Korean politics remains deeply divided. When parliament confirmed Lee’s nominee for prime minister on Thursday, Yoon’s conservative People Power Party, now the main opposition party, boycotted the vote.
Air Traffic Controllers’ Strike in France Grounds Thousands of Passengers
FRANCE
Two French air traffic controllers (ATCs) unions went on strike Thursday to protest challenging working conditions, leaving thousands of passengers using French airports or airspace grounded during the first weekend of local summer holidays, Euronews reported.
The strike is expected to continue, possibly over the weekend, disrupting the busiest period for tourism in France, which sees almost 90 million tourists annually. July and August are also the key months for the French to take vacation.
The UNSA-ICNA union, the second-largest union for ATCs in France, organized the strike, citing “toxic” and “authoritarian” management, and calling for an increase in staff and salaries.
USAC-CGT, the third-largest union, also went on strike on Thursday.
The French Civil Aviation Authority has requested airports across the country to reduce the number of flights they usually handle, leading to flights at Paris’ airports to be cut by a quarter on Thursday and by 40 percent on Friday.
Airports in the south of France will be among the worst affected: On Thursday, more than half of all flights using Nice airport were cancelled.
Low-cost airlines Ryanair and EasyJet said they had to cut 170 and 274 flights, respectively.
Meanwhile, some flights over France to the United Kingdom, Spain, Greece, and Ireland have been affected.
Strikes by European ATCs have become increasingly common, Politico noted.
“High demand puts considerable pressure on Air Navigation Service Providers, some of whom continue to struggle with staff and capacity shortages,” European Transport Commissioner Apostolos Tzitzikostas said, adding that governments should start “hiring and training additional controllers where needed.”
Some ATCs are grappling with 40 percent more flights than six years ago, said Eurocontrol, the European air traffic management body.
However, training to become an ATC takes three years.
DISCOVERIES
Fragments of Time
When archaeologists began excavating at a redevelopment site in London, they stumbled across thousands of fragments of shattered plaster.
They didn’t know yet that they had stumbled on treasure.
But after three months of piecing shattered plaster fragments back together, they discovered they were magnificent Roman artwork in the form of frescoes unseen for more than 1,800 years.
“This has been a ‘once in a lifetime’ moment, so I felt a mix of excitement and nervousness when I started to lay the plaster out,” senior building material specialist Han Li said in a statement. “Many of the fragments were very delicate, and pieces from different walls had been jumbled together when the building was demolished. It was like assembling the world’s most difficult jigsaw puzzle.”
As the process to piece the remains back together progressed, images of birds, fruit, and even lyres, an instrument similar to a harp, began to emerge. Li also surprisingly found yellow panel designs with black intervals.
“Usually what’s very common in the 1st and 2nd centuries in Rome and Britain and to an extent in northwestern Europe, is you get red panels with black intervals,” Li told the Washington Post. “So red panels are actually incredibly, incredibly common, but yellow panels, …you don’t see many of those at all.”
The plaster also revealed ancient graffiti left behind by the villa’s owners and visitors, including an engraving of a near-complete Greek alphabet. Similar examples from Italy indicate that the alphabet had a practical use, like a checklist, tally, or reference.
Cornered by a tabula ansata, a carving of a decorative tablet used to sign artwork in the Roman world, Li spotted the Latin word ‘FECIT’, meaning “has made this.” This could have been a rare link to the work’s artist but the fragment is broken where the painter’s signature would have appeared, meaning their identity remains a mystery.
The remains are one of the largest collections of painted Roman plaster ever found in the city, which, thousands of years ago under Roman rule, was known as Londinium. They were discovered in 2021 at the Liberty site, a 220,000-square-foot redevelopment project that will eventually host homes, restaurants, retail outlets, and offices. Archaeologists had found other artifacts from Roman London at the site, such as mosaics and a rare mausoleum.
Meanwhile, the researchers think the frescos once decorated around 20 internal walls of a luxurious Roman building that was torn down before 200 CE.
The reconstruction indicates that the painters behind the frescoes were likely inspired by wall decorations in other parts of the Roman world, such as Xanten and Cologne in Germany, and Lyon in France. The Roman owners of the building wanted these paintings to showcase both their wealth and their artistic taste, researchers said.
While the purpose of the building is not yet clear, the frescoes suggest it may have partly been used as a commercial property involved with storage or the distribution of storage jars and vessels reaching London by ship from other regions of the Roman Empire.