VVD leader Dilan Yesilgöz has insisted her party will not make any concessions on mortgage interest tax relief after coming under pressure from potential partners in the next coalition.

The VVD insist that scrapping the tax break would punish families and “create stress for people”, despite economists blaming it for stoking an overheated housing market.

GroenLinks-PvdA has pledged to phase out mortgage tax relief over eight to twelve years, while progressive-liberal party D66 plans to scale it back over 15 years and the centre-right Christian Democrats (CDA) have set a 30-year target.

Finance minister Eelco Heinen, also from the VVD, said in an interview with AD this week that he would not abolish the measure even as part of a wider overhaul of the tax system, in a clear sign that the party sees it a red-line issue.

“Hard-working people base part of their lives on it. They’ve been dismissed as a bunch of rich folk who don’t have any right to it. To me that’s unfair.

“There are so many inefficiencies in the tax system, so why should we target the one element that middle incomes depend on? I think it’s the wrong place to start.”

Centre-right coalition

On the first day of the traditional debate to start the parliamentary year, the algemene politieke beschouwingen (APB), D66 leader Rob Jetten accused Yesilgöz of putting up a “blockade” on a coalition with his party and CDA after the October 29 election by playing hardball on mortgage tax relief.

“I was hoping Mr Jetten would go up to the microphone and say: ‘I want to join’,” she said.

Jetten replied that Yesilgöz’s “dream coalition” of CDA, VVD and D66 was on course to win less than 60 seats, well short of the 76 required for a majority, meaning GroenLinks or a clutch of minor parties would have to be included.

The VVD has ruled out another coalition with the largest party in parliament, Geert Wilders’ PVV, after it triggered the collapse of the last cabinet in June.

Wednesday’s debate was dominated by the upcoming election campaign, with only occasional mentions of the measures outlined by Heinen in his budget statement on Tuesday.

Migration quotas

Yesilgöz challenged GroenLinks-PvdA leader Frans Timmermans to set a quota on migration, after the party said in its election manifesto that it wanted to limit net migration to between 40,000 and 60,000 a year.

“It was presented as a change of course, but we’re all asking where exactly the change of course is,” Yesilgöz said.

Timmermans countered that his party had taken steps and accused the VVD of “complying with Wilders’ anti-constitutional plans” on migration.

“You’re not against Wilders on principle, just the fact that he walked away. You think his 10-point plan is fine, even though there are things in it that are diametrically against our constitution.”

Clash on Israel

The parties also clashed over Israel’s military incursion in Gaza, a day after the United Nations’ human rights council published a report calling describing it as genocide.

Yesilgöz resisted calls rom leaders including Volt’s Laurens Dassen and Esther Ouwehand to adopt the term genocide, but insisted: “We think we can ensure the cabinet takes steps towards securing a ceasefire.”

Earlier PVV leader Geert Wilders opened the debate with a long tirade against Muslims, warning that Islam was on the way to becoming the majority religion in the Netherlands and reading out a long list of locations of asylum seekers’ accommodation centres.

Other parties accused Wilders of putting “self-interest above the national interest” and betraying the voters who gave his party 37 seats at the last election.

“You are too cowardly to take responsibility for the policies you could have brought in,” Timmermans said.

Wilders claimed his efforts to bring in tougher immigration rules had been frustrated by coalition partner Nieuw Sociaal Contract (NSC). “If it’s not working, you have to be honest and go back to the voters,” he said.