Queen out of government, says Wilders

The anti-immigration party PVV is to submit a motion calling for the queen’s role in government to be restricted to ceremonial functions, NOS tv reports on Thursday.


PVV leader Geert Wilders says in a number of newspapers that queen Beatrix’s Christmas Day speech was ‘stuffed full of multi-cultural nonsense’ and was largely directed at his party.
In her televised speech, the queen criticised the increase in intolerance and the way discussion is being replaced by hardened standpoints. ‘The PVV was not mentioned but everyone understands what she was driving at,’ Wilders says in the Telegraaf.
Speaking from his holiday address, prime minister Jan Peter Balkenende said he is completely behind the sentiments expressed by the queen in her Christmas speech.
‘Wilders says he wants to defend Dutch interests, but he is destroying that which makes the Netherlands the Netherlands: our royal family, our tolerance and our solidarity with people beyond our borders,’ Balkenende told news agency ANP.
Queen Beatrix is officially head of the government but is inviolable, which means the prime minister is responsible for everything she says.
The monarch co-signs new laws and has an important role in the creation of new governments by naming the person who is to form a new coalition. The monarch also chairs the Council of State, the country’s highest judicial body.

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