While Vladimir Putin wants to tear countries in the European Union apart with his war in Ukraine, right-wing radical parties threaten to “erode the strength of the political partnership.” Rob Jetten, D66 leader and outgoing Minister of Climate, said this on Saturday afternoon at a party conference in Brussels. “The problem is no longer that they want to damage the EU by leaving. The problem is that they want to stay in it to completely destroy it.”
Laurens Dassen of Volt also warned at a party conference about the increased power in Europe of right-wing radicals in countries such as France, Italy, Hungary and the Netherlands. He warned of a possible cabinet with Geert Wilders’ PVV and addressed the forming parties NSC, BBB and VVD about it. They sit down with an “anti-rule of law one-man party” to “negotiate about the rule of law”. Dassen finds this “indefensible”. “They are playing with fire.”
Dassen has not forgotten twenty years in which the PVV called for mosques to be closed, borders and the independence of the judiciary to be questioned. “So believe Geert Wilders when he says he is a man of his word.” Dassen referred to the right-wing radical party PiS, which was in power in Poland until recently, and Fidesz of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. “The free press has been restricted, critical scientists silenced and NGOs hunted. If you ask people there: how did it come to this? Then they say, and I have it etched in my memory: ‘We never thought it would happen so quickly.’”
European military integration
Jetten said that “if we facilitate and normalize politicians like Le Pen, Orbán and Wilders, we corrupt freedom, tarnish democracy and lose our right to speak.” Governing party D66 lost fifteen seats in the House of Representatives election last November. Yet they are right-wing populists who “do not sense what people want,” he said. Jetten pointed to opinion polls that show a large majority in favor of supporting Ukraine, stronger European defense and renewable energy sources.
The D66 leader said that “Europe as we know it today was built in response to trauma.” He recalled the Wannsee conference in Brussels, where the Nazi leadership decided on the extermination of Jews. That was on January 20, 1942, 82 years ago. “Does it really take another period of violence, destruction and collapse to realize that we need each other?” According to him, anyone who is concerned about migration or security “puts Europe first.”
The leaders of the two progressive pro-European parties both argued for further European military integration to counter the Russian threat. According to Jetten, it is an “insult to taxpayers” that EU countries spend the same amount as China and even “three times as much as Russia”, but are nevertheless unable to arm themselves sufficiently. He wants a European Ministry of Defense and a European command structure within NATO. “We are a peace machine that has entered a war mission. Act accordingly.”
Dassen spoke about a European general who sees Putin getting closer. And he sighs, with a possible return of Donald Trump as president in the US and the consequences that this could have for support for Ukraine against Russia: “How do we create a European army that is able to protect us?” “Our mission is clear,” says Dassen. “Do everything to protect our European ideals.”
Volt, which retained two seats in the House of Representatives elections, will vote on Saturday afternoon on the list of candidates for the European Parliament elections that will take place on June 6.
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Anyone who facilitates the PVV tarnishes democracy, according to leaders D66 and Volt