Yearbook 2007
Netherlands. According to
CountryAAH, the Netherlands was given a new coalition
government in February following the parliamentary elections
held in November 2006. This time, the Christian Democratic CDA, which was still the largest party, formed the
government of the second, the Social Democratic Labor Party.
The coalition also included the small Christian Union (CU).
Christian Democrats leader Jan Peter Balkenende remained as
prime minister.
One requirement for collaboration that the PvdA made was
that around 30,000 asylum seekers would be granted residence
permits. These were people who have been in the country
since before 2001, when the immigration law was tightened.
The amnesty, which was approved by Parliament in June,
marked a marked change in price compared to the previous
government, whose immigration minister Rita Verdonk
advocated the expulsion of illegal immigrants.
The waves of debate went high in May over the boundaries
of so-called reality TV when a TV station planned to let a
mortally ill woman on live broadcast choose one of three
kidney-sick people to whom she would donate her kidneys. The
Prime Minister criticized the program and demands were
raised that it should be stopped. It was only at the time of
broadcast that it became apparent that the whole thing was a
scam, designed to bring to the attention of the problem of
lack of organ donors.
After a marked death and other incidents involving
tourists who injured themselves, the government decided to
ban the sale of hallucinogenic so-called "magic" mushrooms.
The sale of dried mushrooms was already illegal, but fresh
mushrooms had hitherto turned big money in the drug liberal
Netherlands.
In 2009, Geert Wilder's right-wing radical PVV joined the
European Parliament and became the second largest party in
the Netherlands with 17%.
The coalition government collapsed in February 2010, when
the Social Democrats erupted after disagreement over whether
the Netherlands should continue to join the occupation force
in Afghanistan. Otherwise, the government would have
continued until 2011. At the beginning of February, NATO had
asked the Netherlands to extend the country's participation
in the occupation, but the Social Democrats opposed it. All
2,000 soldiers are now expected to be drawn by the end of
2010.
The June 2010 parliamentary election was a stinging
defeat for the incumbent Christian Democratic-dominated
government. The CDA dropped from 41 seats to 21 and the
party's chairman, Jan Peter Balkenende, announced that he
was resigning both as chairman and as prime minister. The
biggest winner of the election was the Danish People's
Party's sister party, the fascist and xenophobic VDD, led by
Geert Wilders, who went ahead 15 seats from 9 to 24.
Parliament's two largest parties became the Liberal VDD with
31 seats and the Social Democracy PvdA with 30. The
complicated government negotiations ended in September with
the formation of a minority government consisting of the VVD
and the PvdA with the fascist Freedom Party as a supporting
party - the same parliamentary model as in Denmark. A
lawsuit began against Wilders in October for his hate speech
aimed at Muslims.
The Netherlands performed best within the EU during the
global economic crisis. In March 2010, unemployment had
reached only 4.1%, compared to 10.1% in the EU as a whole.
Youth unemployment had reached 7.4% with the EU average of
20.6%. However, GDP fell by 4.3% in 2009.
In October 2010, the Netherlands Antilles was dissolved
as a political entity. A number of referendums had been
carried out in the Dutch colonies at the beginning of the
decade and had ended with the large islands seeking
independence, while the small ones - Bonaire, Sint Eustatius
and Saba - were seeking integration into the colonial power.
After October 10 they were granted the status of Dutch
municipalities.
Wilder's PVV withdrew as a support party for the
government in April 2012. That same year, 6 of its MPs left
the party in protest of Wilder's authoritarian leadership
practices. It was officers and police who left the party, so
they were already used to authoritarian leadership
structures.
The farewell of the PVV meant that the Rutte government
fell and a new parliamentary election was held in September
2012. The voters this time punished Wilder's PVV, which went
down 5.3% to 10.1%. In contrast, the government party VVD
rose 6.1% to 26.6, and the Social Democracy rose 5.2% to
24.8. Despite the progress of the VVD, the Christian
Democrats next went back as much as the VVD went forward. In
other words, the elections had not made the parliamentary
situation much clearer. After two months of negotiations,
the VVD and the Social Democracy formed a majority
government. |
