Dutch media report that Geert Wilders’ Freedom Party (PVV) wants to make Reneitte Klever the new minister of foreign trade and foreign aid, a department she wanted to axe.
Renette Klever is a former MP for the hard-right party between 2012 and 2017, who has served both in the Parliament and in the Senate of the Netherlands.
In 2016, Klever said her country should get rid of foreign aid.
A year prior, on February 2015, Klever asked in a plenary debate “if it was reasonable to give many billions of euros to extra asylum seekers, after payments to Brussels and development aid to corrupt countries while economically hurting Dutch people?”
On a right-wing website, The Post Online, she wrote a piece, claiming that asylum seekers bring “tuberculoses, hepatitis, polio, cholera, typhoid and other exotic diseases”.
The commentary piece focused on the consequences of mass migration. She called the high numbers of asylum seekers to the Netherlands “a threat to our prosperity”, noting that they are awarded too many benefits, which she then listed.
Klever is a business economist by education. After her career in politics, she went on to work for the right-wing firebrand TV broadcaster Ongehoord Nederland.
Under the new right-wing government, the Ministry of Development Cooperation will be rebranded the Ministry of Development Aid.
With Geert Wilders' Freedom Party (PVV) as its biggest partner, the new Dutch coalition has promised the toughest-ever laws on asylum, a relaxation of climate policies, and more "breathing room" for low-income families. https://t.co/TDbLOC8EMn
— Brussels Signal (@brusselssignal) May 16, 2024
On June 12, Dutch media reported that the four coalition parties decided to have 16 ministers, including that of the new Prime Minister.
PVV has five ministries, while the The People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) and the New Social Contract (NSC) each get four. The Farmer–Citizen Movement (BBB) is the smallest, with two ministries.
The PVV will get the ministries of foreign trade, of infrastructure and water management, of economy, of health, and of asylum and migration.
The Liberal VVD will have the justice, finance, defence, and climate ministries.
The centrists from NSC will get foreign affairs, the interior, education and social affairs departments.
Finally, the BBB will assume the agriculture and housing ministries.
The aim is to officially install the newly formed government at the end of June.
Civil servants in the Netherlands reportedly fear job cuts and policy changes in directions they do not want as the country braces for new leadership featuring the hard-right Freedom Party (PVV). https://t.co/NAvOR6KJg1
— Brussels Signal (@brusselssignal) June 11, 2024
