Dick Schoof Says No and partly gets his way

PVV, VVD, NSC and BBB have never experienced it before, they can hardly believe it at first. Prime Minister Dick Schoof will stand on his stripes, Thursday morning in a consultation at his ministry. He wants the Netherlands to participate in the European Plan for Rearmission, with also borrowed money. He already said that in Brussels. And now three of the four coalition parties want him to withdraw his support for the idea, which still has to be worked out. He would be in his shirt in Europe.

Shoving it does not say aloud, others at the table think it is: he is not going to come back to his commitment in Brussels and otherwise he cannot continue. That would mean a cabinet crisis that nobody has counted on, and that would not have one of the four parties electoral benefits. It is then pushed himself right for the support of Ukraine and the safety of Europe.

What makes the surprise even greater for the others is that Schoof had more than a week to not let it get that far. He could have been calling about the Ja21 motion with which it all started last Wednesday. In it the cabinet was called upon not to support the European plan, and it was immediately clear that PVV, NSC and BBB would vote for. In The Hague it works in such a way that political advisers and the prime minister themselves start calling around to bring those parties to other ideas, to offer a way out.

But nothing happened. Only this week on Tuesday, when it came to votes and the motion was adopted, did they become nervous on Schoof’s ministry. And only then did he make time to sit with PVV leader Geert Wilders and Caroline van der Plas from BBB. Wilders and Van der Plas had wanted to have that appointment much earlier, to talk about the 3.5 billion euros in support for Ukraine with which Schoof had just arrived in a debate, without consultation with Hénen. Their Deputy Prime Ministers in the cabinet also knew nothing. The VVD people do.

One-two

In the office of Schoof, Wednesday morning at half past eight, the Prime Minister wants to talk about the Ja21 motion. But not Wilders and Van der Plas. They believe that he should answer for the 3.5 billion and one-two, in their eyes, with the VVD, who, according to them, has made a political show of the extra support for Ukraine. If he wants to talk about the European REACHING PLAN, he must do so with the other coalition parties. That happens the next morning, on Thursday at ten o’clock, again on Schoof’s own ministry.

And there the four parties see how high it was playing. De Telegraaf Has already announced that attitude in the morning: “pushes off”.

The time that Schoof had not used to get his coalition with it seems to have used it to make clear to the outside world how important he finds the safety of Europe. In the TV program Café Kockelmannlast Friday evening, he starts about “me.” Against his habit, almost always sheaf – Prime Minister without a party – talks about “we” or “the cabinet,” or sometimes, when he talks about himself, “the prime minister.” Now he lets it turn around. “I have taken my responsibility,” he says about the 3.5 billion for Ukraine. Schoof also says with great emphasis on how “important” it is that he did that “for peace in Ukraine.” “That is of the utmost importance for Europe and for the Netherlands. That is why I make such a point not to bring this to the Hague games. “

In The Hague it had been about the coalition parties and the Deputy Prime Ministers who knew nothing about his decision to give money to Ukraine again. PVV Vice-Prime Minister Fleur Agema had demanded “a strong conversation” with Schoof that morning, in the Council of Ministers. And BBB Vice-Prime Minister Mona Keijzer was also unpleasantly surprised. At that time it had also come out that Wilders and Van der Plas’ want a conversation with him as quickly as possible about that 3.5 billion. So he was called on the mat.

And so it takes up for itself Café Kockelmann. It is only the second time that he appears in a talk show as a prime minister. He wanted to come himself and he wanted to sit solo at the table with Sven Kockelmann. Immediately at the beginning. He wants to be home before midnight because it is his birthday. Schoof becomes 68.

Consultation at Wilders

The consultations of this Thursday, at Schoof’s ministry with the four coalition parties, will be suspended at the beginning of the afternoon. Without a solution. In between, Schoof has an appointment with Minister of Finance Eelco Heinen about the Spring Memorandum, with the budget of this year and next year. BBB leader van der Plas and Pieter Omtzigt of NSC are in Wilders’ room for consultation that afternoon.

The VVD is not there, the VVD is just like Schoof for participating in the European Rears Encouragement Plan. VVD leader Dilan Yesilgöz had been replaced in the morning by vice-party chairman Bente Becker, Yesilgöz was abroad. The other party leaders of the coalition had not heard more.

At five o’clock that afternoon they sit together again at the table, at the Ministry of Schoof. At four past five, the Ukrainian President Volodyymyr Zenskyy puts a video on X: he has a visit from Yesilgöz. He talked to her about the delivery of F16s, drones and ammunition, and also about investments in the Defense industry of Ukraine.

The VVD could not have planned it, the consultation with Schoof suddenly came and a long preparation is needed for such a visit to Ukraine. It comes out very well that Yesilgöz ‘party comes together. The real prime minister is under pressure at home and tries to get the coalition in line with Ukraine and the defense of Europe, and in the meantime she makes the impression that she represents the Netherlands, in the Zensky office. He thanks through her Netherlands for years of support.

A bit right

On Friday, after the meeting of the Council of Ministers, it will be visible on which incentive formula and the four coalition parties were released. It is a compromise that you often see in The Hague. Everyone is a bit right. The cabinet, in a letter to the House of Representatives, will perform the motion of Joost Eerdmans “partly, partly not”. Shoves promises to look ‘strong and firm’ at the parts that most objections are against, namely joint European debts and the relaxation of budget rules. The Netherlands will not agree ‘if necessary’, or even refrain from voting.

Little remains of the call from the Eerdmans motion, not to support the European plan.

Whether all that crisis meeting of the past week had really been necessary? Dick Schoof calls that in his press conference on Friday “a very difficult question.”

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