Dutch Election Shows Politics In Trouble #2

An Further Examination Of The Crises That Led To The Massive Victory of Geert Wilders' Anti-Immigration Freedom Party

Last week, I talked about several crises that have been occurring in the Dutch political landscape over the past years. In this post, I am going to list several more, namely the nitrogen crisis, the ‘cost of living’ crisis in large part caused by the war in Ukraine, and a double crisis of migration and housing which may have played the largest role in the Freedom Party’s massive victory. If you have not already, read the previous post here:

Now, let’s get into some of the other crises that have further eroded public trust in national politics. As I said last week, this list is in no particular order, and is not meant to give a comprehensive overview but to give you an idea of the extent of what is in essence a series of structural problems that need to be addressed as soon as possible.

CRISIS - Nitrogen Crisis
There have been massive farmer protests in reaction to the government's plans to implement measures to limit nitrogen deposition. Nitrogen can be found in things like animal manure and fertiliser, and when there is too much of it in an ecosystem, it can have a negative effect on its functioning. While nitrogen levels are definitely too high, in large part because of the large number of farms and their close proximity to water, and while they need to be brought down to preserve rapidly deteriorating ecosystems and water quality, these swift and far-reaching measures come after more than a decade of government policies that ignored the issues and gave farmers the go-ahead to expand. These decisions, or rather lack thereof, are further compounded by the other major pressures facing farmers, like having to comply with ever-stringent laws and regulations while free trade agreements force them to compete with farmers from countries without many of those regulations as well as lower worker wages. Only after mounting pressure from the European Union, as well as a judgement by a Dutch court that put a lot of construction projects on hold, did the government start coming up with these farming policies. These policies include the possibility of forcing farmers to sell their farms. Massive farmer protests have postponed the execution of any of these plans for now, and three of the winners of this election (the Freedom Party, New Social Contract, and the Farmer Citizen Movement) have all pledged to change the previous government’s policies. It will be interesting to see how these pledges are going to fare against E.U.-mandated environmental policies, and whether some sort of a compromise solution can be found that does not result in farmers dumping asbestos on the highway.

CRISIS - War in Ukraine & Rising Food And Energy Prices
Frequently called the ‘cost of living crisis’ in other countries, in the Netherlands it was often debated in the context of ‘livelihood security’. As you have probably noticed if you’re living in the West, prices of just about everything have been skyrocketing ever since the war in Ukraine has been exploding energy prices, which has been pushing up inflation to the double digits. While inflation has been going down since October, grocery prices are still more than 10 percent higher than they were a year ago. Basically, everything is more expensive, whether it’s ordering food, shopping, or fuel for your car.

I want to keep this section as short as I can, or I’ll be spending the rest of the post talking about how the war could have been prevented if the West had stopped meddling in Ukrainian elections as well as training and arming its soldiers, how it could have been ended without Ukrainian loss of territory in the first few months if people like then UK prime minister Boris Johnson had not sabotaged peace talks, how the energy crisis might have been prevented if the U.S. had participated in serious discussions aimed at finding a compromise instead of busying itself with blowing up Europe’s gas pipelines, and how a whole generation of young Ukrainian men (and increasingly women as well) could have been spared needless slaughter; in a conflict that can now only result in a ceding of Ukrainian land to Russia or an indefinite continuation while more and more of the country is destroyed. If only the West cared as much about human lives or the climate as they do about making war and controlling the flow of global resources, so much suffering could be spared. Let’s not even get into the West’s complicity in what is happening in Gaza and how it is contributing to all the children dying there.

The bottom line for this crisis is that costs of living for ordinary citizens have been skyrocketing, due to a combination of lockdown-caused inflation and a rise in energy prices caused by the conflict between the West and Russia. To date, despite being massively affected by them, no Dutch citizen has been able to vote on any of these policies. These elections were the first time anyone could express any kind of dissatisfaction with government policy, and I would argue a lot of people clearly have.

DOUBLE CRISIS – Housing & Migrant Crisis
This issue played a major role in the elections, and the victory of the Freedom Party, so it is worth discussing in more detail here.

First there is the shortage of available housing, not helped by the construction delays related to the nitrogen issues. It is estimated that there is a shortage of about 300,000 houses, which is expected to continue rising in the coming years. The main causes of this are, according to the government, a rising and ageing population, more people living by themselves, a lack of space, lots of rules and long building procedures, high building costs, and the nitrogen crisis (see the nitrogen section). The housing crisis has been fuelling the rhetoric around migrants, especially refugees, as several political parties are saying that they should not be getting housing when so many Dutch people cannot get a house. 'Our people' first, essentially. Waiting lists for social housing in and around major cities are 10+ years long, housing and rent prices are through the roof because of all the demand. The government wants to build 900,000 houses from now until 2030, and there is a lot of debate about where these houses would need to be built, and how big of a factor nitrogen emissions and concerns for the environment should play.

Then there is the issue of migration. The previous government fell after the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) pulled out the plug over the migration issue, despite its partners all saying that an agreement was very close. Some have criticised the decision as political opportunism. Whatever the case, this meant that migration became a central election issue, which definitely contributed to Wilders’ Freedom Party’s (and not the VVD’s) electoral success.

Last year, there have been 389,415 immigrants and 175,000 emigrants (people leaving the country). Ukrainians made up a sizeable portion (87,000) of people entering the country last year, and accommodating these refugees is rarely criticised. This is despite the fact that there has been an increase in Ukrainians travelling to the Netherlands from other EU countries (when they have refugee status, they are free to travel and seek work throughout the EU). A recent report stated that 15 percent of Ukrainians who have started looking for work in the Netherlands since August first lived in Poland for an extended period of time. In any case, because the influx of people from Ukraine was a direct result of the conflict, the immigration number is very likely to be much lower this year.

Many (129,000) of the immigrants coming to the Netherlands come from within the EU, and are therefore free to travel, and seek work and housing (this can also include people who got a visa in a different EU country). Refugees only make up 9.1% of all immigrants (11% on average the past ten years), although they are more likely to settle here permanently than other types of immigrants. Another big group of people (not included in immigrant statistics) who come the Netherlands and need housing are foreign students. In 2022, about 115,000 students came from outside the country. This number has been climbing in recent years, resulting in foreign students making up forty percent of first year university students across the country. Besides the immigration debate, there is also a lot of discussion about whether and how much these numbers should be reduced.

For several parties, a big sticking point with refugees is that some of them are given priority when applying for housing, similar to how you can get priority because of impending homelessness or long travel distance from and to your place of work. While I do not know what the statistics are for private housing, asylum seekers who are allowed to stay in the Netherlands get about 5-10% of all social housing. In other words, at least 90% of these houses still go to Dutch people. While more people definitely means a bigger shortage of housing, migrants are not the cause of the housing crisis. Moreover, there are hardly any numbers that can tell us something about how the effects of discrimination, or not having a social network that can help you find a house, affect an immigrant’s odds of finding a house. I have spoken to plenty of people who immigrated to the Netherlands who have told me that it is practically impossible to find a suitable and affordable house. I have also spoken to plenty of people who did not immigrate here who have told me the exact same thing. This once again underlines the need for structural, long-term solutions. It is unfortunate that a shortage of houses is pitting groups of people against each other like this, in competition for limited resources that do not have to be limited if the core issues are addressed.

Translated from source: https://www.unhcr.org/nl/media/mythen-en-feiten-over-vluchtelingen/

I could very easily go on naming more crises, but let’s leave it here. Considering these many issues, which politicians have either not been solving or making worse, as well as a previous election cycle in which 'new leadership' was promised but which delivered a government formed by the exact same parties as before, it baffles me how media figures can be so surprised by the election results. As I said in the previous post, “feelings of shock and surprise only occur when your reality is abruptly changed by something that you did not see coming.”

What is your reaction to all these issues? What kind of solutions could start addressing these deeply structural issues? Are these new parties the ones to do it, or do solutions need to be created outside the current political structures? Share your opinions by leaving a comment below.