He was the major absentee in the Radio-1 election debate on Friday evening, Pieter Omtzigt chose to give a lecture in the Bergkerk in Deventer. There he gave a talk about social security, one of the themes that his young party has been trying to profile itself on since its founding in August. “With election debates, even today, you have one minute to explain how you want to solve social security,” says Omtzigt. “That’s quite difficult.”
He spoke for an hour in the church in Deventer. He spoke, largely from memory, about the plans in the New Social Contract election manifesto. He opposed model thinking as a basis for political policy and called the dissolution of the Ministry of Housing by the Rutte 1 cabinet “the biggest historical mistake ever”.
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VVD challenged
At the beginning of the evening, almost all the seats in the medieval church were still occupied. “Now that we even hear the VVD talking about social security, we know for sure that it is a major problem,” said Omtzigt. He challenged VVD party leader Dilan Yesilgöz to debate the theme with him for an hour “just like Frans Timmermans”. “Where do we mean the same thing, where do we see something different?” Omtzigt wants, he says, to look for solutions “together” with the VVD member.
A discussion was also organized in the Bergkerk, with a social security councilor, a sociologist and an ethics professor. But due to the poor acoustics in the hall, little could be understood of the critical notes they made about Omtzigt’s argument. This led to the room starting to empty during the conversation.
Earlier in the day, Volt leader Laurens Dassen said that the Netherlands would take “twenty, thirty, forty steps backwards” if NSC became the largest party. Dassen, for example, criticized NSC’s plans for Europe. “Then what does he propose? That each national parliament is given veto power, making Europe ungovernable.”
After his lecture, Omtzigt said when asked that Dassen “acts as if we want to get a veto back on everything, that won’t work. We now only have that veto on taxes and new policy areas, and we want to keep it that way. I think it is important not to take on large new joint debts. That seems to me to be mainly thinking ahead instead of thinking backward.”
Full agenda
Omtzigt also says that he would like to enter into a discussion with Dassen. But will that be possible before the November 22 elections? His agenda is “quite full,” according to the politician whose party is scoring high in the polls. He has “more priorities”. “I can also imagine such a debate about Europe during the European elections. ” He calls it “very positive” that Dassen is “breaking open” the debate about Europe.
And that debate that Omtzigt wants before the elections, with the VVD? “You can assume that if we make a public invitation, we have also extended it to the party itself in advance.” Whether it will lead to anything, says Omtzigt, “we’ll have to see, I’m curious.” The VVD has not yet made itself heard.
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Pieter Omtzigt wants a one-on-one debate with VVD leader Yesilgöz about social security