Nationalists’ First Crack at the EU Establishment Looks Like a Bust
Labor Set to Win Dutch European Vote, Beating Rutte, Populists
(Bloomberg) -- In Europe’s battle between resurgent populism and the establishment, moderate, pro-EU parties are poised to win the first round decisively.
Two mainstream Dutch parties are expected to take the top positions in Thursday’s election, with Labor, which staunchly supports the 28-nation bloc, poised to finish first with 18% of the vote, edging out Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s Liberals, which garnered 15%, according to an exit poll conducted by Ipsos. The anti-EU Forum for Democracy, which will enter Parliament for the first time, finished fourth with 11%, while Geert Wilders’s anti-Islam Party only picked up 4%.
The Netherlands, along with the U.K., was the first EU members to contest the bloc-wide European Parliament election. Most EU nations, including Germany, France and Belgium, vote on May 26.
Many candidates have portrayed the election as a referendum between mainstream policy-makers such as French President Emmanuel Macron and nationalists like Marine Le Pen and Matteo Salvini who are skeptical of closer ties between member states. Macron has presented the vote as a binary choice between his vision of a more integrated Europe and the anti-immigration stance promoted by Le Pen.
Close Fight
Voters in the Netherlands opted for the left-wing Labor party, led by European Commission Vice President Frans Timmermans, after polls predicted a close fight between Rutte’s Liberals and Forum for Democracy. In his campaign, Rutte compared his pragmatic attitude toward the EU with what he called a dangerous stance from Forum leader Thierry Baudet to seek to leave the bloc.
The results of the Dutch vote will be published on Sunday after polls across the European Union have closed. The Christian Democrats are set to win four of the 26 seats in the European Parliament available to Dutch parties, the exit polls show.
Thursday’s vote contrasts with Forum’s win in Dutch provincial elections two months ago. That March vote made Forum, which only entered the lower house of Dutch parliament in 2017, the largest party in the Dutch Senate. Rutte’s four-party coalition government lost its majority in the upper house, forcing his government to look for broader alliances going forward if it wants to move ahead with its policy agenda.
TV Debate
Rutte, who has led three coalition cabinets since 2010, and Baudet exchanged jabs in a televised debate late Wednesday evening that showcased two very differing views on the EU.
The premier acknowledged that not everything is rosy in Europe, but he stressed that benefits for the Dutch economy from working with other European countries outweigh the negatives. The Forum leader said the Dutch can thrive without the EU and should take back control on topics such as immigration. He wants a referendum to let voters decide if they want to leave the bloc.
Polls have shown that the vast majority of the Dutch electorate wants the country to remain in the EU, while Forum and Wilders’s PVV have the highest number of voters that are against being part of the bloc.
To contact the reporters on this story: Joost Akkermans in Amsterdam at jakkermans@bloomberg.net;John Hermse in The Hague at jhermse@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Ben Sills at bsills@bloomberg.net, ;Chad Thomas at cthomas16@bloomberg.net, Richard Bravo
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