Prominent Christian Democrat and former prime minister Dries van Agt protests against his party’s negotiations with the Liberal VVD to form a government with support from Geert Wilders’ anti-Islam PVV in parliament in an article published on Monday in the Volkskrant.

Van Agt calls on the Christian Democrats to ‘retrace their steps’ and warns that Wilders will have ‘too many fingers in the pie’ if he is allowed a say in any cabinet agreement.
He goes on to argue against many of the points in the PVV manifesto, including the demand for a halt to immigration from Islamic countries and that immigrants would only be eligible for unemployment benefit after living in the Netherlands for ten years.
‘All these demands are unacceptable,’ he writes. ‘None of them may be brought in, even in part.’
Remarkable
His comments follow those of former defence minister and Liberal VVD party leader Joris Voorhoeve on Saturday. He told the radio programme Kruispunt on Saturday it is ‘remarkable’ that two democratic parties should be negotiating with an undemocratic party.
He was referring to the lack of elections in the PVV and that the party wants to change the Dutch constitution.
It ‘makes you stop and think’ when the Liberal VVD and the Christian Democrats accept that Wilders’ ideas on many fundamental issues are so different yet allow him to express these ideas with no political responsibility within the coalition, he told the programme.
Earlier this year, Voorhoeve joined the left-wing Liberal D66 in protest at the VVD’s plans to cut development aid.