Pieter Omtzigt’s Nieuw Sociaal Contract (NSC) party, founded last August, has released its long-awaited manifesto for the upcoming Dutch parliamentary elections on November 22nd.
A stricter policy on migration and an emphasis on national sovereignty in the face of an ever-domineering EU machine prove to be the most eye-catching pledges.
Omtzigt, an MP, member of the Council of Europe, and the Netherlands’ most popular politician, founded the party after a quarrel with his former political home, the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA/EPP).
He became a fêted figure in the Netherlands for helping expose state malfeasance in the 2020 child benefit scandal, during which tens of thousands of parents were unfairly accused of having committed fraud by misusing said benefits. Due to the debts parents incurred as a result, many fell into poverty.
To tackle the Netherlands’ long-standing migration issue, which has seen its system buckle, if not collapse, due to the mass influx of migrants, the NSC seeks a sharp reduction of those numbers.
To that end, it proposes a target figure of 50,000 migrants per year, which would include those who live in the country for work (short-term or long-term), study, asylum, or to reunite with family. Observing such a scheme, the party says, the Netherlands’ total population would remain below 20 million by around 2050.
The party also proposes a stricter deportation policy and for the office of a minister for migration policy to be created.
Other items on the list include the building of two nuclear power plants, reducing nitrogen to restore biodiversity, and shrinking the livestock population.
While the party is in favor of a “greening of industry,” it does not want to “drive it out.” It has called for more offshore wind turbines and solar panels on rooftops but stops short of committing to large wind farms and solar fields.
On the EU question, the party wants to steer away from an “ever closer union,” and instead advocates a
firm position from the Netherlands, constructive but realistic, without creeping transfers of tasks, powers and budgets that erode national sovereignty.
In addition, it says that power should be exercised on “as low a level as possible,” i.e. subsidiarity. With that approach, the EU would take action “only if it is more effective than national, regional or local measures.”
To aid that goal, the party would put the option of negotiating opt-outs from EU policies on the table. Furthermore, a legal mechanism could be introduced that would oblige the government to respect the opinion of the Dutch parliament when voting on legislative proposals at the EU level (something it had been guilty of not doing before).
In case of disagreement with certain EU legislative proposals, due to either “insufficient support, workability or excessive costs”, the party could form a blocking minority with like-minded EU states while threatening that “the Netherlands will opt out and not participate in any new legislative or policy initiative” should it find itself without allies.
The idea closely mirrors the one from that other new kid on the block, the agrarian protest party Farmer-Citizen Movement (BBB), which previously stated such opt-outs from the EU’s migration and nature policies in its own election program.
With the Dutch elections just around the corner, Omtzigt’s party is currently leading in various polls. Establishment parties, particularly outgoing Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s VVD and the joint Labour and Green list under former EU climate chief Frans Timmermans, however, remain a valid countervailing force, trailing not far behind.
