The practical Dutch
Wilders is sidelined, but all is not rosy in the EU
The results of Wednesday’s national elections in the Netherlands had voters rejecting anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant, anti-European Union candidate Geert Wilders in favor of representatives of their usual collection of parties, led by the current prime minister, Mark Rutte.
A process will begin in which a government made up of representatives of these parties — not including Mr. Wilders, with whom all of them refuse to work — will be selected to rule for the next four years.
Mr. Wilders’ party gained a few seats, Mr. Rutte’s lost a few, the Greens gained and Labor lost, but the usual kaleidoscope of Dutch political opinions reflected in their various parties prevailed overall.
There had been some thought that Mr. Wilders was going to profit at the polls from what might have been seen as a trend begun by the British “Brexit” vote last year to leave the EU, and America’s election in November of the nonconventional candidate, Donald J. Trump, as president. In the end, the Dutch vote might have indicated that the tide, in fact, is running the other way.
Dutch voters see the political confusion in Britain as Prime Minister Theresa May tries to ease it out of the EU without damaging the economy. Matters are even more potentially catastrophic on the political side as Scotland, where a majority voted against Brexit, contemplates another referendum on independence. Northern Ireland, which also voted against an EU exit and whose Catholics retain a vision of one day unifying with the Republic of Ireland, which will remain in the EU, also shows political restiveness.
It is hard to say what lesson the pragmatic Dutch drew at the polls from what is going on in Washington at the moment.
Down the line, the thought that there might be building in Europe a trend, which could also envelop France, whose elections start in April, and Germany, facing elections in the fall, received a vote to the contrary in the form of the practical Dutch choice this week. Americans should find the Dutch vote comforting, suggesting continuing stability in that key NATO and EU member in the center of Western Europe. Mr. Wilders would have tried to turn the place upside down if he had won.