Dutch prime minister will lead caretaker administration until new elections

Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof said his coalition government will become a caretaker administration after far-right politician Geert Wilders pulled his ministers out of the Cabinet in a dispute about a migration crackdown.

The announcement completed a day of political turmoil in The Hague sparked by Mr Wilders’ decision to turn his back on the ruling coalition.

Mr Schoof said he would offer the resignation of ministers from Mr Wilders’ Party for Freedom to the Dutch king. He and the other ministers will remain in office in a caretaker capacity, he told reporters.

The decision means the Netherlands will have a caretaker government when it hosts a summit of Nato leaders in three weeks.

No date for a new election has been set, but it is unlikely before autumn.

Mr Schoof, a career civil servant who was handpicked by Mr Wilders a year ago to lead the government, said he had repeatedly to coalition leaders in recent days that bringing down the government would be “unnecessary and irresponsible.”

“We are facing major challenges nationally and internationally and, more than ever, decisiveness is required for the safety of our resilience and the economy in a rapidly changing world,” Mr Schoof said.

Mr Wilders announced his decision early Tuesday in a message on X after a brief meeting in parliament of leaders of the four parties that make up the fractious administration.

Mr Wilders told reporters that he was withdrawing his support for the coalition and pulling his ministers out of the Cabinet over its failure to act on his desire for a clampdown on migration.

“I signed up for the toughest asylum policy and not the downfall of the Netherlands,” said Mr Wilders, whose Party for Freedom is still riding high in Dutch opinion polls, though the gap with the centre-left opposition is negligible.

Coalition partners rejected that argument, saying they all support cracking down on migration.

Dilan Yesilgoz, leader of the right-wing People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy, said before the meeting that Mr Schoof urged the leaders to act responsibly.

“The prime minister who appealed to us this morning said that we are facing enormous international challenges, we have a war on our continent, an economic crisis may be coming our way,” Mr Yesilgoz told reporters in parliament.

But just minutes later, the meeting was over and so was Mr Wilders’ involvement in the government.

“I’m shocked,” Mr Yesilgoz said, calling Mr Wilders’ decision “super-irresponsible.”

After years in opposition, Mr Wilders’ party won the last election on pledges to slash migration. He has grown increasingly frustrated at what he sees as the slow pace of the coalition’s efforts to implement his plans.

Last week, Mr Wilders demanded coalition partners sign on to a 10-point plan that aims to radically slash migration, including using the army to guard land borders and turning away all asylum-seekers. He said at the time that if immigration policy is not toughened up, his party “is out of the Cabinet.”