site.btaBoth Pro-European and Eurosceptic Parties Won in EP Elections, Dutch Journalist Says

Both pro-European and eurosceptic parties won in the elections for the European Parliament in the Netherlands, Dirk van Harten, a journalist with the Dutch news agency ANP and its long-time correspondent in Bulgaria, told BTA in an interview after the June 6 elections.

The first political force was the coalition of the Greens and the Social Democrats - two parties that are pro-European. "They will have a total of eight of the 31 Dutch MEPs and it is clear that voters voted for the pro-European parties," he said. "But at the same time, we see that in second place is the Freedom Party: a eurosceptic party."

Geert Wilders's party had no representatives in the previous European Parliament and now it will have six. Van Harten calls it "a huge result for Wilders" and said he is considered the winner.

The Freedom Party and three other parties are currently forming the new coalition government of the Netherlands after the general elections in November 2023. Wilders won convincingly. Three of the parties are eurosceptic (Wilders' Party, the Citizens' Movement for Rural Areas and the New Social Contract), while the fourth - the Liberal Party (People's Party for Freedom and Democracy) - is pro-European, explains Dirk van Harten. The Farmer-Citizen Movement and the New Social Contract are new parties and won a total of three MEPs, while the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (Mark Rutte's party) lost one and will now have four MEPs.

Dirk van Harten does not agree that the EP election was something of a vote of no-confidence in Wilders because he came second. "Many people who supported Geert Wilders in the national elections have a more sceptical view of the European Union and are therefore reluctant to vote in the European elections, the Dutch journalist points out. He cites exit polls showing that half of those who voted for him in the national elections have now not voted. We also see this trend with the other two parties in the coalition that are Eurosceptic (the Rural-Civic Movement and the New Social Contract), he adds. We also see that Geert Wilders' popularity has only grown since November. 

As much as 46.80% of voters in the Netherlands voted in the European elections. That's nearly 4% more than five years ago, but far lower than the turnout in the national election. In November 2023 it was nearly 77%.

According to Dirk van Harten, this is a trend that can be seen everywhere in Europe: turnout is higher in national than in European elections.

The reason, he says, is that for many people Europe is far away. "They think that European politics is on some more abstract level and not related to the problems they see around them. They don't understand how European politics relates to national politics and what the influence from Brussels is," says Van Harten. 

He adds that eurosceptics use Europe as a scapegoat to explain that they cannot do something at national level because of European legislation. "Europe still has a huge image problem", the Dutch journalist concludes.