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Minister Judith Uitermark (NSC) of the Interior needed few words in response to PVV MP Marco Deen’s demand to dismiss Amsterdam mayor Femke Halsema. “No,” she said bluntly immediately after the debate on her ministry’s budget. “There is not a hair on my head that is thinking of submitting her resignation to the king now.”
“I am really quite surprised about that,” said Uitermark about the smear campaign by the extreme right-wing PVV. “Our mayors deserve support. They really have to make local decisions every day in difficult circumstances. As Mayor Halsema has now done.” Halsema does that well, says Uitermark. “So I cast this far from me.”
In a ‘baseline’ on the rule of law, coalition parties PVV, VVD, NSC and BBB have agreed, among other things, to protect “independent institutions”, and according to Uitermark, this also includes mayors. “They are the faces of our democratic constitutional state.” On Tuesday, PVV leader Geert Wilders was presented with the same basic line, but he immediately made it clear that he completely ignored it.
With her response, Uitermark is so far the only one within the cabinet or the coalition parties who firmly supports the Amsterdam mayor. So far everyone, including Prime Minister Schoof, has reacted half-heartedly in order not to offend Wilders. Nevertheless, Uitermark does not want to comment further on the disastrous collaboration with the PVV for NSC. “The baseline also states that we can have an open and fierce debate with each other.” She later added: “I don’t say what an MP should or shouldn’t do.”
