The House of Representatives must jointly “never accept that a Member of Parliament is threatened”. That is what Vera Bergkamp, chairman of the House of Representatives, said after the last votes of the parliamentary year. PVV leader Geert Wilders has “unfortunately long and intense experience with it”. This year, a number of MPs had to deal with threats for the first time, Bergkamp said.
“In the meantime, we will continue with our work in any case. That is part of our resilient democracy.”
It was a turbulent political year, Bergkamp said. “There was hardly time to catch my breath.” Corona, the war in Ukraine, the increased energy prices, the gas problem in Groningen, the ongoing problems with surcharges and the long formation. She called the past parliamentary year “the perfect storm”, and a period “when everything that can go wrong actually goes against it and those events also reinforce each other”.
She also recalled the debates about the limits of manners in the House. A firm and sharp debate “magnifying the extremes” is “indispensable for a healthy democratic process”, but there are limits. The House also discussed this during the past parliamentary year. “In any case, during the perfect storm, let’s continue to find the cooperation. Maybe then it will lie down.”