D66 party leader Jan Paternotte was rebuked yesterday by Maaike Timmerman when he more or less accused Caroline van der Plas of not caring about Ukraine. “Whoa!”
In the NPO 1 morning show, Goedemorgen Nederland, Jan Paternotte argued in favor of fixing support for Ukraine for five years. According to him, this sends the signal to Russia that there is no point in waiting until Europe and America get ‘tired’ of this war.
Paternotte fears
And the D66 faction leader is actually also referring to our own country. “Is there also a fear that things will be different after the elections? With a different composition,” asks presenter Maaike Timmerman.
Yes, Paternotte agrees. “Donald Trump is Putin’s hope, but if you also look at other countries, such as France, he hopes that Marine Le Pen will come to power there. It is much more pro-Russian. And there are also parties in the Netherlands. Geert Wilders had it in his program that he did not want to send any F16s, no money. No more support.”
“Caroline didn’t say anything!”
Maaike thinks that things will not be too bad in the Netherlands, because Ukraine enjoys broad support here. “We are talking about Wilders and Forum, for example, but there is a lot of support among the rest of the parties.”
Paternotte makes a comment on this. “Well, Caroline van der Plas recently had a lecture and she said nothing about Ukraine. She was asked: ‘Why don’t you say anything about that?’, and then she said: ‘Well, I don’t think that’s that important, because we are busy rebuilding the Netherlands.’”
‘Hooves!’
That criticism of Caroline’s BBB is unjustified, Maaike believes. “But wait, you are talking about the HJ Schoo lecture, but if you look at the BBB election program, it contains twelve pages about foreign affairs and defense.”
The presenter continues: “She has always supported Ukraine, they are also in favor of achieving that 2 percent standard. Isn’t that a bit easy to say that she didn’t talk about it in that lecture?”
Most importantly
Paternotte stands by his criticism. “The question is of course: do you think that is the most important thing? That is difficult. What BBB does not do, for example, is have the program calculate it, so you can see exactly what financial choices they make and what they find most important. Then you don’t know whether they really want to continue that support.”
Fragment
The excerpt from Good Morning Netherlands: