Dutch government sworn in after Wilders election win

[muriel_volestrangler]

After months of political wrangling, an agreement was reached for the new Dutch government to be led by a surprise pick - the former head of the Dutch intelligence service, Dick Schoof.

Mr Schoof was the fifth person approached to preside over the eclectic coalition, and among the few palatable candidates for all four parties.
...
The VVD and New Social Contract parties have pledged to ensure Mr Wilders’ populist right is kept in check - and Mr Wilders has been forced to water down his party's most extreme policies in order to keep the three other coalition parties on board.

Pledges to ban the Quran, close Dutch borders and hold a referendum on the Netherlands future within the EU have been put on ice, along with Mr Wilders' own prime ministerial ambitions.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cd1r0xvn0z5o

Schoof himself was a civil servant from the intelligence and security side, and his personal politics were moderate left:

From 1996, Schoof held various senior positions in the field of security.[9] He served as deputy secretary-general at the Ministry of Security and Justice before being appointed chief director of the Immigration and Naturalisation Service (IND) in 1999.[2][10] The Netherlands was experiencing a relatively high influx of asylum seekers as a result of the Kosovo War, and the organization had a significant backlog of requests. Schoof was responsible for implementing reforms to the Aliens Act by State Secretary for Justice Job Cohen in 2001 that simplified the asylum procedure, and he worked to deport applicants that did not qualify. The number of asylum applications declined, which Schoof attributed to stricter migration policies. A later evaluation concluded that legislation had a more limited impact, suggesting that external factors were the primary drivers of the drop.[11] Schoof left the IND to become director-general at the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations in 2003, where he was in charge of restructuring the police force from a number of regional organisations into a single National Police Corps.[12]

After serving as director-general at the Ministry of Security and Justice (from 2010 to 2013), Schoof was appointed National Coordinator for Security and Counterterrorism (NCTV).[9] He allowed his employees to monitor potential terrorists on social media through fake profiles despite warnings from his attorneys.[4] Following the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, he coordinated the Dutch crisis response, strengthening his relationship with Prime Minister Mark Rutte. When Schoof requested an independent investigation by Twente University into the performance of his office, he was accused of interfering. He exerted pressure to soften its main conclusion.[5][8][13][14] Schoof led the General Intelligence and Security Service as director-general from 2018 to 2020.[9] De Volkskrant wrote that his relatively short tenure was characterized by a culture clash. Schoof unsuccessfully tried to make the agency more outward facing, including through cooperations with institutions and universities. In 2019, he warned the education ministry and the municipality of Amsterdam that supporters of the Salafi movement were on the board of an Islamic school. His message was perceived as a way to assert pressure, and it received criticism for stirring up polarisation.[4][15]

In December 2019, it was announced that Schoof would succeed Siebe Riedstra as secretary-general of the Ministry of Justice and Security, the most senior non-political position within the ministry.[13][16][17] The appointment took effect on 1 March 2020.[18] In his role, he was involved in negotiations on asylum reform that led to the collapse of the fourth Rutte cabinet in July 2023. Upon reaching the legal retirement age in March 2024, Schoof chose not to retire and was granted an exemption to continue working for three more years.[7]

Schoof was a passive member of the Labour Party (PvdA) for over 30 years, until he left the party in early 2021.[5][19] Following the general election victory of the populist Party for Freedom (PVV) of Geert Wilders in November 2023, Schoof called it a signal of distrust towards the government in an interview. He said the people could not have been wrong if they voted for the PVV in such large numbers.[8]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Schoof

Good to see that it looks like Wilders is being kept in check by the coalition.

[Turbineguy]

1. Schoof seems like a pretty good fit.

[eppur_se_muova]

2. I have at times wondered about moving to the Netherlands, but people like Wilders give me pause.

Between Wilders and Trump, though, the choice would be easier.