While 25 of the 26 Dutch members of the European parliament have now taken their seats and started work, one seat still remains empty, the Volkskrant reports at the weekend.

Geert Wilders is determined to take the fourth seat but faces a long legal battle to take it. The anti-EU campaigner is fighting against a ban on MPs in national European parliaments doing the same job in Brussels.

A spokesman for the European Court of Justice in Luxemburg told the Volkskrant that normal legal proceedings take around two years.

Wilders can also ask for a quicker hearing but only seven out of 33 requests for a speedier case last year were approved. And even then they last six months to one year.

In the meantime Hans Jansen, the anti-Islam academic who was fourth on the PVV’s candidates list, is in no hurry to make the move, the Volkskrant says.

‘I’m busy with other things. I’ve retired, I get royalties and I am writing a book,’ the paper quotes him as saying. ‘I thought it was fun to vote for myself for once, but my happiness does not depend on that seat.’