Just before the polls, the committee consisted of representatives of five parties: PVV, GL/PvdA, VVD, BBB and NSC. Of all those MPs, only De Kort remained.
“It’s a shame that I was the only one left in the Chamber, but the old committee did make a good transfer for new members,” the VVD member told De Telegraaf. “We even worked during the recess to do everything we could to keep the delay as limited as possible.”
FvD and PVV are missing
The corona committee is investigating how the previous cabinet acted during the corona crisis. The functioning of the cabinet and the House of Representatives during that period is, among other things, under the magnifying glass.
FvD MP Gideon van Meijeren left the corona committee in May after less than two weeks. He then claimed that as a Member of Parliament he was denied access to advanced documents, but according to De Kort that was not true.
Van Meijeren (FvD) will leave the corona committee within two weeks: ‘I am hardly allowed to ask questions’
It is striking that they are not on the committee again, while the FvD was always very critical of the way the government acted during the corona pandemic. The party wanted, among other things, tribunals, or courts that are often used for serious criminal acts such as war crimes.
The PVV has also not yet registered. Before the 2023 elections, research into corona policy was postponed because almost no one wanted to be on the committee. After the elections, PVV leader Geert Wilders made haste, as a result of which the committee was rigged. New MPs from other parties can still register.
Black-lacquered documents and steps
The CDA also chooses not to delegate anyone, despite the fact that they have grown considerably. “The larger factions must play their part in, it sounds a bit disrespectful, but in tasks that generate less publicity,” says the CDA leader, who explains that he has to make choices in this regard. His party is conducting the investigation into the affair surrounding former House Speaker Khadija Arib, but the corona committee is not. “I have 14 new MPs and I think this is quite a difficult committee to appoint a new MP to,” says Bontenbal.
The work is expected to take about three years and will not be completed before 2026. It remains to be seen whether this will actually succeed. The corona committee has already suffered a number of setbacks. For example, the committee had a dispute with the cabinet about sharing unvarnished chat messages and the committee regularly changed its composition.
De Kort is pleased that there are now at least two new members: “We will first work to share the results of the file research and the closed preliminary discussions. We will continue to work on that foundation towards public hearings.”