Although Holland is one of the 6 founding countries of the European Union, EU and even a forerunner of the integration project as a member of the Benelux - a system of economic cooperation and customs union with Belgium and Luxembourg born in 1944 - the political elections Dutch March 15 could undermine the already shaky European stability.
If the majority of the political establishment is not radically anti-European, the position of the Dutch towards the EU has become increasingly critical over the years, with support for the integration project hovering around 40%.
On the eve of the elections, there is also speculation that Holland, a country which in the 70s was one of the main supporters of British membership of the EU, could be the next country to leave the Union.
At the moment, despite the 28 parties competing for the 150 seats in the Tweede Kamer, the lower house of Parliament, the political battle is mainly played out between the leader of the Party of Freedoms (PVV), Geert Wilders, and the current prime minister Mark Rutte, leader of the Party for Freedom and Democracy (VDD).
According to the latest data, it is estimated that the VDD could win 23 to 27 seats, outdoing the PVV and thus acquiring the opportunity to form a new coalition government.
The migration crisis and political indifference
The PVV, which has Holland's exit from the EU as the second point of its programme, nonetheless stands as the second party. Wilders' electoral campaign is based on anti-Islam and anti-immigration rhetoric and portrays the EU as the main cause of the arrival of refugees in the country.
However, since 2015, the number of asylum seekers in the Netherlands has decreased by half thanks to the agreement with Turkey and the closure of the Balkan route. This suggests that the anti-immigration rhetoric is not only linked to the current crisis, but to a general fear that the Dutch welfare system cannot handle the presence of immigrants from both non-European countries and some member countries.
This theory is supported by the fact that today, out of a population of about 17 million, the number of people from other countries is 3,8 million, of which only half are not European citizens. At this juncture, as in other member states, rather than the migration crisis, it was globalization that favored the development of tendencies resistant to openness, which support forms of nationalism on which the PVV, but not only that, has built your election campaign.
In fact, VDD himself based part of his campaign on the need to recover Dutch values and fight against the abuse of state-guaranteed freedoms by immigrants. While not using the extremist rhetoric of the PVV, in his statements Rutte argues that foreigners in the Netherlands must integrate and accept liberal values, or leave.
The economy could ensure victory for the VDD
Fortunately, the elections will not be won only thanks to the issue of immigration, but also on the basis of economic trends. The European Commission has predicted that the Netherlands will grow by 2017% in 2. This figure is higher than the average for Eurozone countries which is currently 1,6%.
Furthermore, a further reduction in unemployment is expected, which should settle at around 5,2%. Even the latter is exceptional, compared to 9,6% of the European average. It is precisely these positive trends that could ensure victory for the VDD, the largest party in the current government.
The VDD also plays on the results of the referendum in Great Britain and the elections in the United States, urging Dutch citizens to be pragmatic and to consider the chaos these two countries have ended up in because of one vote.
However, the game still remains open and another issue on which the elections will be played are the austerity policies implemented by the breakfast government led by Rutte, which has led to a cut in social welfare, especially in the health sector.
Indeed, if from the point of view of trade policies Holland is very close to Great Britain and the United States, while the monetary and fiscal policy approach is in line with the German one, the social welfare model was traditionally generous, very similar to Swedish. At this juncture, the very support guaranteed by the Labor Party to Rutte's austerity policies has cost the left its political legitimacy.
The Labor Party debacle and possible coalitions
Labor will almost certainly be overtaken by the Christian Democrats, who could win 21 seats, the centre-party Democrats by 66 and the Greens, with 17 seats each. Political coalitions are not new in the Netherlands and, in the event of victory, the VVD could form an alliance with the other centre-based forces, especially in an anti-Wilders key. However, it is rather unlikely that environmentalists will agree to join the majority with Rutte's liberals.
Furthermore, the opportunity cost of political coalitions, which are weighing not only on the legitimacy of the Dutch Labor Party but also on that of many traditional European parties, will be severely analyzed by the winning parties, projecting scenarios that are not easy to predict even in the post-election days , when the winning party will probably have to negotiate a coalition with others to be able to govern the country.
In fact, if the VDD has a high probability of being able to form a group with other parties, this operation would not seem possible for the PVV, even if it wins, given that most of the parties have declared that they do not want to enter into coalition with such an extremist party.
Holland will be the first stress test of the traditional parties' resistance to populist forces, paving the way for the electoral appointments of France and Germany. In fact, beyond the possible victory of the PVV, which in any case would hardly manage to govern, the alarming fact of the elections in Holland lies precisely in the use, albeit in a moderate form, of populist rhetoric even by traditional parties.
The latter practice which, added to the difficulty of responding effectively to the needs of citizens, is undermining the political legitimacy of the traditional parties, leaving ample room for growth to the same anti-European populist forces that are fighting each other.
