The race to replace outgoing globalist Prime Minister Mark Rutte in the Netherlands will now include one of the chief architects of the European Union’s green agenda as the fight to implement Great Reset-style climate initiatives heats up.
A battle over the future of Dutch farming will be waged at the ballot box in November, with veteran Eurocrat Frans Timmermans being selected to lead the coalition of the left-wing Labour Party and the communist-spawned GreenLeft party. Timmermans, who resigned from his Brussels-based posts as the EU Commission Vice President for the Green Deal and the European Commissioner for Climate Action to fight the race, was selected as leader by members of the two leftist parties this week, broadcaster NOS reports.
Son of a diplomat, the Limburger politician has long been involved in the expansion of EU authority over the national sovereignty of the bloc’s member states, having been a central figure in drafting the European constitution as well as the Dutch referendum on its ratification. He has also been a vocal critic of conservative states countries as Hungary and Poland for contravening the neo-liberal agenda of Brussels, not to mention his at-times bizarre opposition to Brexit.
More recently, Timmermans has turned his focus to imposing the EU’s Green Deal. He has vigorously pursued this agenda to such an extent that he has even earned the nickname the “Climate Pope” of Europe.
From his Brussels perch, Timmermans has also been central in trying to force the Great Reset-style restrictions on the farming sector in his home country of the Netherlands. In March, it was revealed that his former deputy, Diederik Samsom, had written to Prime Minister Mark Rutte urging him to follow through with controversial plans to buy out thousands of farms and shut them down by force if they refuse.
Therefore, the upcoming election will likely see a battle between the green agenda globalist forces and the populist pro-farmer factions in the country, specifically the populist Farmer-Citizen Movement (BoerBurgerBeweging/BBB), which became the largest party in the Dutch senate earlier this year on the backs of the tractor protest movement against the EU’s climate restrictions.
After being founded just three years ago, the Farmer-Citizen Movement has become a force to be reckoned with within Dutch politics. However, at present the combined support for the Labour and GreenLeft parties would give Timmerans an advantage of 17 per cent to the BBB’s 14 per cent.
It is the first time that the Labour Party and the GreenLeft have joined together in a national election, although they already do act in the senate as a bloc. In a blow for Timmerans, the Socialist Party and the Party for Animals refused this week to join his election coalition.
Yet the Farmer-Citizen Movement may have suffered an even larger blow this week, with the popular centre-right Pieter Omtzigt forming a new political party, the New Social Contract, to fight for votes in November’s election. According to a survey conducted by broadcaster RTL, over half (56 per cent) of those who had planned on voting for the BBB were now considering supporting Omtzigt’s New Social Contract instead.
A former member of the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA), Omtzigt has largely been a critic of the European Union and has argued for the Netherlands to be free to opt out of certain EU programmes. The leader of the Farmer-Citizen Movement, Caroline van der Plas has so far expressed praise for Omtzigt and expressed a willingness to form a potential coalition.
“I look forward to further cooperation, and I assume that. We have many common ground and it is important that politicians from the east of the country are represented in national politics. The wise men are from the East,” van der Plass said, adding: “I’m very happy that he’s participating. He’s the best MP we have.”