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| Geert Wilders |
Wilders, 52, whose party leads opinion polls with calls to close Dutch borders to refugees, pledged to immediately pull the Netherlands out of the 28-nation EU should he become prime minister in elections due in March next year. The EU is unraveling and that’s to be encouraged, he said, urging the U.K. to quit the bloc in its forthcoming referendum.
“We are not sovereign any more; we are not even allowed to form our own immigration policy or even close our borders and I would do that,” Wilders said Thursday in an interview in the Dutch parliament building in The Hague. “I would wish the Dutch to be more like Switzerland. In the heart of Europe, but not in the European Union.”
A household name in the Netherlands since 2004, when he split from the mainstream Liberal party to form his own on an anti-Islam platform, the bouffant-haired blond has enjoyed a swell of support as voters grow increasingly alarmed at the arrival in Europe of more than a million refugees from Syria and elsewhere.
The latest poll showed him winning the most parliamentary seats -- as many as Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s Liberals won in 2012 -- if elections were held now.
After years of turbulence surrounding Greek membership of the euro, the focus of uncertainty in the EU has shifted to Britain, where Prime Minister David Cameron is set to call a referendum as early as June on whether the U.K. should stay in or leave. Wilders said he “hopes” Britons will opt to quit, with a knock-on effect on the Netherlands.
Note Almere Digest: Geert Wilders has never shown how he will carry out his plans in case he succeeds to pull the Netherlands out of the EU.
He is a danger to the long-term economic, political and social stability of the Netherlands. His motto so well put by the French is : "Après moi, le déluge".
Read more: Populist Wilders Says EU Is Finished as He Leads Dutch Polls - Bloomberg Business
