“The PVV promised voters the strictest asylum policy ever,” including a proposal to “close the borders to asylum-seekers,” Geert Wilders, leader of the Party for Freedom, told reporters after announcing that his party is leaving the coalition government.  

The Dutch government collapsed Tuesday following the decision of Geert Wilders, leader of the Party for Freedom (PVV), to leave the coalition in a dispute over the government’s position on asylum policy.

Wilders announced on X that his party would quit the government.’’“No signature for our asylum plans. No changes to the coalition agreement. PVV is leaving the coalition,” he wrote.

The Dutch government, led by Dick Schoof, is a coalition between Wilders’ right wing PVV, the populist Farmer-Citizens Movement (BBB), the centrist New Social Contract (NSC) and the liberal People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD. The government  had scheduled crisis talks Tuesday morning to discuss Wilders’ demands for stricter asylum measures.

At the heart of the dispute lies the PVV’s ten-point asylum plan, which includes proposals widely deemed incompatible with European law. Wilders had demanded that the government’s outline agreement be amended to include these measures. The other coalition parties refused, citing legal constraints and insisting that PVV Minister Marjolein Faber could already act on many of the party’s proposals without changes to the agreement.

Wilders, however, insisted on formal inclusion of his demands and threatened to withdraw if this was not secured. Despite calls from coalition leaders to act in the national interest, he confirmed his departure Tuesday morning, less than an hour after the four party leaders met for crisis talks.

“The PVV promised voters the strictest asylum policy ever,” including a proposal to “close the borders to asylum-seekers,” Wilders told reporters. When his coalition partners refused to sign up to the plans, “I had no choice but to say: We rescind support for this Cabinet,” he said.

The collapse of the Schoof government marks the first time that Wilders has pulled his party out of an actual governing coalition. In 2012, he withdrew parliamentary support from the Mark Rutte I minority government.