European Cultural Initiative Founded under Habsburg Patronage Dresden, 7 March 2026Under the patronage of Prince Leo von Hohenberg, great-grandson of the Austrian heir apparent Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Este, founders from six European countries have established the "Support Association for the U-Turn for Europe Foundation" in Dresden. The association is currently undergoing registration proceedings with the Register of Associations and is intended to form the long-term foundation for a European cultural foundation.Europe in a Crisis of Orientation – Culture as the AnswerBehind the founding stands a clear diagnosis: Europe finds itself not only in a political or economic crisis but above all in a cultural and intellectual crisis of orientation. The U-Turn for Europe initiative aims to counteract this, through the promotion of European culture, cultural education, and the preservation of the continent's historical and intellectual heritage."Political debates frequently remain superficial. Without awareness of Europe's cultural and moral foundations, any responsible shaping of our continent lacks the necessary depth," says Stefan Korte, initiator and association chairman.Prominent Founders, European FoundationThat a project concerning Europe's cultural future must also rest on a genuine European foundation was a central concern for Korte from the outset. The seven founding members come from six different European countries – a deliberate signal.Prince Leo von Hohenberg assumes not only the patronage but also the chairmanship of the Board of Trustees, which is to accompany the cultural and strategic orientation of the initiative. His willingness to participate lends the project a historical dimension: the House of Habsburg is historically closely linked to the political and cultural history of Central Europe.General (ret.) Valdas Tutkus, former Commander-in-Chief of the Lithuanian Armed Forces and one of the defining military figures of modern Lithuania, was elected deputy association chairman. Tutkus brings extensive international experience in security and strategic policy matters."Europe is more than a political or economic project. It is a historically evolved cultural space and we must engage with its intellectual foundations if we wish to speak seriously about its future," states Korte.Cultural Re-rooting of EuropeIn terms of content, U-Turn for Europe advocates for a cultural re-rooting of Europe. Central to this is the heritage of Christian Western civilisation, which has shaped fundamental European values such as human dignity, freedom, responsibility, and civic spirit over centuries and, in the initiators' conviction, must be brought back more strongly into public consciousness.In addition to concrete cultural projects and educational initiatives, the initiative plans to establish a European think tank that will develop analyses, studies, and public debates on questions of European culture, identity, and geopolitical developments in the long term.First Conference in Vienna in AprilThe initiative will set its first public signal on 11 and 12 April 2026: the first U-Turn for Europe Values Conference will take place in Vienna, to which prominent figures from culture, academia, and public life from across Europe are expected.The association expressly understands itself as a non-partisan and charitable initiative with the aim of building a European network and initiating cultural projects and intellectual debates on Europe's future in the long term.Further information:<a href="http://www.uturnforeurope.com/">&nbsp;www.uturnforeurope.com</a> Press contact: Stefan Korte +49 176 620 903 07 contact@uturnforeurope.com<img src="/uploads/image_ffd8d83d74.png"> &nbsp;

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European Cultural Initiative Founded under Habsburg Patronage

The influence of foreign powers on organisations in the Netherlands has long been a cause for concern. This is particularly the case when institutions present themselves as independent, while at the same time appearing to maintain close ties with foreign governments. Recent reporting has once again raised questions about such influence, this time concerning the Islamic Foundation Netherlands (ISN).According to an article by GeenStijl, a Turkish diplomat, religious attaché Ömer Özgül of the Turkish embassy, is said to play a prominent role within ISN. This is remarkable because the foundation previously told the House of Representatives that it operates independently and that Turkish diplomatic influence would be kept out of the organisation.At the same time, it appears that the Dutch government, through the Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment, has cooperated with ISN and provided subsidies for activities and research. This raises questions about the independence of those projects, but also about the diligence with which the government entered into this cooperation.For Forum for Democracy, one principle is central: organisations that are under the influence of foreign states should play no role in policy-making, research, or subsidy schemes of the Dutch government.For that reason, Member of Parliament Russcher has submitted written questions to the Minister of Foreign Affairs. He seeks clarity about the role of the Turkish diplomat within ISN, the earlier commitments to reduce Turkish influence, and the subsidies which the Dutch government has granted to this foundation. He also asks whether an investigation should be launched into the role of the Turkish Diyanet (the Presidency of Religious Affairs) and whether the diplomatic status of the attaché should be reconsidered.Questions from the member Russcher (FVD) to the Minister of Foreign Affairs concerning the central role of a Turkish diplomat within the supposedly independent Islamic Foundation Netherlands, and the subsidies the ministry has granted to this foundation.<ol><li>Are you familiar with the reporting by GeenStijl showing that the Turkish diplomat Ömer Özgül plays a central role within the Islamic Foundation Netherlands (ISN), while ISN claims to be an autonomous and independent organisation?</li><li>Can you confirm that Mr Özgül, as the official religious attaché of the Turkish embassy, is regularly present at ISN’s premises and also travels abroad with ISN delegations, including to Ankara?</li><li>How does the presence of a Turkish diplomat as a de facto leader within ISN relate to the promise ISN made to the House of Representatives in 2020 to exclude Turkish diplomatic influence from the organisation?</li><li>Why has the Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment, through the Knowledge Platform Inclusive Society (Kennisplatform Inclusief Samenleven), cooperated with and granted subsidies to a foundation that appears to be so closely connected to the Turkish state?</li><li>Does the minister agree that funding research through a foundation that is under the influence of a foreign power seriously undermines the objectivity and reliability of that research?</li><li>What due diligence did the ministry carry out before cooperating with ISN, and why was the known history of Turkish interference not taken into account?</li><li>Is the minister willing to suspend all subsidy relationships with ISN and the ISN Academy with immediate effect until full clarity exists regarding the extent of Turkish state influence within this organisation?</li><li>Is the minister willing to ask the AIVD to draw up an updated threat assessment regarding the role of the Turkish Diyanet and affiliated organisations in the Netherlands, and to inform the House about this?</li><li>Are you prepared to reassess the diplomatic status of Mr Özgül in light of his activities outside the embassy, and, if necessary, take steps towards the Turkish embassy?</li></ol>

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Turkish diplomat heavily involved in the 'independent' Islamic Foundation Netherlands.

12 March 2026For years, often during election season, the same slogans have been heard from the liberal-centrist VVD People’s Party: asylum inflow must decrease, rejected asylum seekers must leave, the Netherlands must regain control, and so on. But last week in Strasbourg it once again became clear how hollow those phrases are. When the European Parliament voted on the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/A-10-2026-0048_EN.html">return regulation</a>, a law that would expand deportation policies for asylum seekers without the right to stay, the VVD abstained from voting. Worse still, in the months beforehand the party had actively tried to weaken that very law.The VVD has consistently used migration as a political crowbar. In 2017, Mark Rutte declared that people unwilling to adapt to Dutch norms were not welcome here, in an&nbsp;<a href="https://wnl.tv/2017/01/23/mark-rutte-normaal-ga-weg">open letter</a> widely circulated as an election pamphlet. In 2023, Dilan Yeşilgöz, then party leader, said that “<a href="https://www.bnr.nl/nieuws/politiek/10526220/dilan-yesilgoz-migratie-overkomt-ons">the inflow of migrants is overwhelming us</a>,” as if migration were an inexplicable and uncontrollable natural phenomenon, like gravity. In its&nbsp;<a href="https://www.vvd.nl/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Verkiezingsprogramma-TK-VVD2025.pdf">2025 election programme</a> the VVD went further: spontaneous asylum applications would no longer be processed at all, only resettlement through selection would remain. Meanwhile, party leader Ruben Brekelmans stated during the debate on the government declaration on 25 February that the VVD “naturally wants to reduce the number of migrants entering our country. We always advocate that and we always work toward it. Asylum inflow must go down.”<h3>From rhetoric to policy</h3>The irony is striking: the VVD has been in power since 2010 and during this period&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cbs.nl/nl-nl/visualisaties/dashboard-bevolking/bevolkingsgroei/immigratie">millions of migrants</a> have come to the Netherlands. This is not surprising. Despite all the tough words, the VVD has in fact facilitated migration.For example, in December 2018 the United Nations Migration Pact of Marrakech was&nbsp;<a href="https://www.eerstekamer.nl/verslag/20181218/verslag">approved</a> by the Dutch government (Rutte III), after being defended by VVD State Secretary Mark Harbers. This pact calls on countries to expand legal migration routes and grants migrants access to various services.Eric van der Burg, VVD State Secretary for Asylum and Migration in the Rutte IV cabinet,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.volkskrant.nl/politiek/eric-van-der-burg-haalt-alles-uit-de-kast-voor-zijn-spreidingswet-en-wint-ik-slijm-me-te-barsten-vandaag~b4a7e03e/?referrer=https%3A%2F%2Ffvd.nl%2F">shaped</a> the so-called “Distribution Act” (Spreidingswet). This law obliges municipalities to receive a certain number of asylum seekers based on population size, thereby embedding the reception of asylum seekers as a permanent municipal responsibility. The Tweede Kamer approved the proposal in October 2023.<h3>European migration approach</h3>At the European level as well, little remains of the VVD’s tough rhetoric.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.europarl.europa.eu/pdfs/news/expert/2023/10/story/20230704STO02012/20230704STO02012_nl.pdf">Currently, four out of five rejected asylum seekers remain illegally in the EU.</a> The European Commission proposed in March 2025 a binding return regulation intended to make it easier for member states to deport these individuals.Malik Azmani, the VVD’s leader in the European Parliament and appointed as rapporteur on behalf of the Parliament, then drafted his own proposal.His&nbsp;<a href="https://ecre.org/european-parliament-draft-report-on-return-regulation/">version</a> was noticeably weaker than the Commission’s proposal: he made voluntary return a mandatory first step before forced measures could be used. This lengthens the procedure and makes swift return more difficult in practice. Additionally, detention for migration purposes, the mechanism that allows authorities to hold individuals who may abscond until deportation, was framed strictly as a last resort. Azmani therefore proposed a maximum detention period of 12 months, compared with the 24 months in the original proposal.Right-wing parties in the European Parliament subsequently submitted a&nbsp;<a href="https://brusselsenieuwe.nl/strengere-terugkeerwet-uitgeprocedeerde-asielzoekers-haalt-meerderheid-met-steun-van-radicaal-rechts/">stricter counterproposal</a>: no automatic suspension during appeals, children no longer excluded from return hubs, and a maximum detention period of 24 months. That proposal passed on 6 March by 396 votes to 226. Notably, Azmani abstained from the vote.<h3>The ‘right-wing’ coalition partner</h3>Moreover,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.kabinetsformatie2025.nl/documenten/2026/01/30/aan-de-slag---coalitieakkoord-2026-2030">the coalition agreement</a>, drafted partly with the VVD, contains no structural solutions to the migration issue. Some proposals even facilitate migration. For instance, the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum-seekers (COA) is enabled to create sufficient structural and flexible reception capacity, while the Distribution Act remains in place.However, the agreement does not mention remigration or a potential withdrawal from the European Union, meaning that migration will likely remain one of the major challenges in the long term, once again under VVD policy.One could say the VVD does not follow through on its bold campaign statements. That last part, failing to follow through, is correct. But are the VVD’s statements even that bold? After all, they merely call for limiting immigration, while remigration is what the Netherlands truly needs. According to this view, that is the only way to ensure that Dutch citizens do not eventually become a minority in their own country.This, proponents argue, is what Forum voor Democratie (FVD) consistently advocates: not only reducing inflow, but actively promoting remigration of those who do not belong here.The VVD speaks of control but lets go. It speaks of return but facilitates residence. It presents itself as critical of migration, yet signs the Marrakech Migration Pact, created the Distribution Act, and fails in the EU to push through genuinely stricter migration policies. This is the VVD’s election mask: just before elections, win votes with strong language that resonates with the public, and then, over 15 years, allow more than three million migrants to enter the country.Fortunately, more and more people are beginning to distinguish between these two faces of the VVD. The mask is starting to fall. And this week, Dutch voters will have the opportunity to respond at the municipal elections on 18 March.

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VVD campaigns for a stricter migration policy but refuses stricter return laws in the EU

Is politics about reality or just appearance? Is it about action or virtue-signalling? Do states prosper from good leadership by people who stand out from the crowd, or do our current democratic systems instead encourage the opposite - the herd mentality, with all the bestiality and oafishness that implies? Watching Lidewij de Vos being remorselessly berated for not distancing herself from this or that remark made by some FVD candidate in some group chat in the previous decade, on the one hand, and Pepijn van Houwelingen lay out, with magnificent clarity, the concrete effects of climate madness, immigration and warmongering on people’s daily lives – especially through new taxes which reach into people’s pockets to pay for this nonsense&nbsp; – makes one fear the answer to these questions. No less than €10 billion are being cut from health spending in the Netherlands to fund the climate and immigration scams and the (American) arms industry. The result? Dutch people get sicker so that these lobbies can cream off their money. It’s that simple, unfortunately, but only FVD sees it.<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=di-eZS6a4K4">Watch Pepijn’s speech here</a><img src="/uploads/image_1adb7e5e6b.png">Gideon van Meijeren MP was acquitted on appeal last week on charges of incitement to violence. The charges were blatantly political and Gideon was subjected to a blatantly political trial. The very fact that the Prosecution service of a state has attacked an opposition politician demonstrates the totalitarian tendencies of today’s Europe. Gideon is not the only European to face lawfare or sanctions for what he has said, but his case is particularly symbolic because his prosecution was undertaken within the context of a 2023&nbsp;<a href="https://english.aivd.nl/documents/2023/11/7/publicatie-anti-institutional-extremism-in-the-netherlands">report</a> by the Dutch security services saying that people who criticise the governmental system (‘anti-institutional extremism’) are a threat to national security. This is part of a wider decade-old trend in Europe, which considers free speech issues – ‘disinformation’ – from a security, not a communication, viewpoint. The security state is upon us.<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2nynCHAPfQ">Watch Gideon’s statement here</a><img src="/uploads/image_a820192556.png">The fact that immigrants continue to pour into Europe after years and even decades of protest against it is terrifying. The EU is about to implement its Migration Pact which does precisely what George Soros wants – it transforms illegal migration into legal. It will not reduce flows and specifically will not change asylum policy, which has been an open door to abuse for years, at huge cost to the receiving countries. As Tom Russcher MP pointed out in a recent speech to Parliament, there is no way to stop immigration other than to close the borders – i.e. abandon Schengen – and leave the EU’s various legal mechanisms which encourage immigration – i.e. leave the EU. Anything else is just make-believe – the one thing our current governments are good at.<a href="https://fvdinternational.com/article/the-european-migration-pact-is-nothing-but-an-eu-distribution-law">Read Tom Russcher’s speech here</a><img src="/uploads/image_c92a3f9305.png">We were honoured and humbled to welcome Dr Setareh Sadeqi from the University of Tehran on The Forum this week – humbled because she joined us from what must be a terrifying war zone. It is almost impossible to believe that the US administration has so recklessly plunged the world into such chaos – and impossible to understand why European leaders continue to give their unconditional support to America, the single greatest threat to world peace.<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tYKri3TDt0">Watch The Forum &amp; Friends here</a>

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The Weekly Forum - 13 March 2026

Speech, 3 March 2026The implementation of the Asylum and Migration Pact is on the agenda of the Justice and Home Affairs EU Council (JBZ Council) on 5 and 6 March.For Forum for Democracy it is clear: the European Migration Pact will not fundamentally limit migration to the Netherlands. The right to apply for asylum will not change; every application will still be assessed individually, and a rejection can still be appealed before a court. That does not change with this Pact.Does the minister acknowledge that this pact does not legally restrict the inflow, but mainly concerns its organisation and redistribution?Then the Solidarity Mechanism - a nice term for what is essentially just a Distribution Law at the European level. Member states can either accept asylum seekers on their territory or pay about €20,000 per person in fines - and we know that not every country will cooperate with redistribution.Poland, for example, has already opposed this before. Hungary has refused to cooperate with European obligations for years.&nbsp; The Czech Republic and Slovakia have also spoken out against it. These countries dare to act in the interests of their own country.What does this mean for the Netherlands?If all countries prefer to pay rather than accept asylum seekers, the pressure will remain on the countries at the external borders of Europe, such as Italy and Greece. If reception facilities there fill up, asylum seekers will simply continue travelling. With open internal borders, they will eventually end up in the Netherlands anyway.So we may end up paying €20,000 per person not to take them in, while still receiving inflow through secondary migration.My question to the minister therefore is: what guarantees does he have that the Netherlands will not both pay and still face migration pressure?And if in practice redistribution does not work, and asylum seekers still come to the Netherlands in large numbers despite these payments, is he then willing to consider that the Netherlands should also stop cooperating with this mechanism?The cabinet calls return “the cornerstone of a functioning asylum policy.” But merely stating this is not enough, because migration also creates an economic incentive for countries of origin.According to recent estimates by the World Bank, migrants transferred around $669 billion worldwide to low- and middle-income countries in 2024. From the Netherlands alone, this amounts to more than €4 billion per year.In Eritrea, this is estimated to account for 30–40% of GDP, in Somalia 20–30%, in Afghanistan around 20%, and in Syria roughly 15–20%.This shows that countries of origin benefit from migration flows to Western countries. They will therefore not readily take their citizens back. Why would they, if it brings them so much money?My final question to the minister is therefore this: if return really is the cornerstone, is he willing to investigate whether money transfers to countries which structurally refuse to cooperate with readmission could be limited or regulated?As long as the Netherlands remains bound by the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), the Refugee Convention, and European asylum law, the right to apply for asylum will remain in place, and returning people to their countries of origin will remain practically impossible.As long as those obligations continue to exist, this European Migration Pact will change nothing fundamental.If the Netherlands wants control over its borders, it must honestly address the question of whether we want to continue adhering to these treaties and European rules, or whether we want to withdraw from them in order to once again decide for ourselves who is allowed to enter our country.

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The European Migration Pact is Nothing But an EU Distribution Law. The High Rates of Immigration Will Simply Continue!

For the last fifty years, the Netherlands has been governed by essentially the same political parties. The various coalitions have included three or four political formations in different constellations. Following the interlude in which Geert Wilders' Freedom Party was in power, the old party cartel has now reasserted its grip. Rob Jetten’s government is composed of three parties who have been governing the country since the early 1970s – for half a century. It is hardly surprising that nothing ever changes after an election. This time is no different. The new government is committed to climate craziness, immigration, high tax and war. Only FVD is different: it wants lower and simpler taxes, growth, innovation, remigration and a foreign policy based on national interest. Political systems in Europe structurally breed mediocrity – no one exceptional could possibly survive in the stifling and brain-dead world of European politics - and mediocrity does one thing very well. It stamps out excellence. As Anatole France said of the Republic, it governs badly but defends itself very well. Lidewij de Vos, FVD’s parliamentary leader, laid this all out with wonderful clarity in her formal statement to Parliament following the swearing-in of the ‘new’ government.<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTTxC56aeA4">Watch Lidewij’s speech here</a><img src="/uploads/image_36b4efff59.png">A good illustration of how nothing will change is the recent revelation that the government is requiring 38,000 new homes to be built to house asylum seekers. This is in spite of the fact that the ‘new’ coalition has promised to crack down on immigration. The truth is that the asylum racket has been running for decades and there is no end in sight. Money for the asylum seekers, lots of jobs for life for the civil servants running asylum and immigration policy - everyone’s a winner except for the taxpayer, the people who find asylum seekers living next door to them, and those Dutch people who are in serious need of housing. Tom Russcher, FVD’s newest MP, put down a series of questions to the Immigration minister about this, of which the funniest is the last one: ‘Is the government prepared to revise Dutch asylum policy completely.’ Don’t hold your breath for the answer! <a href="https://fvdinternational.com/article/tens-of-thousands-of-additional-asylum-places-before-mid-2027">Read Tom Russcher’s questions here</a><img src="/uploads/image_d1bb5f73db.png">John Laughland, FVD International’s director, was recently Stanislav Krapivnik’s guest on his podcast, ‘In the Eyes of Truth’. Stanislav is originally from Eastern Ukraine but grew up in the US and served in the US army; he now lives in Russia. They discussed the war in Ukraine, of course – although it was mainly John asking the questions at that point - but also the dire state of the European Union. What is the role of Germany in the EU? What is Britain’s role in Europe now after Brexit? And what can we expect from the war with Russia?<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&amp;v=rt-D5eM2DMc">Watch John’s interview here</a><img src="/uploads/image_132f9ba897.png">Simon Elmer was our guest on The Forum this week, to discuss his new&nbsp;<a href="https://architectsforsocialhousing.co.uk/2026/02/26/the-great-replacement-and-the-islamisation-of-britain/">book</a> ‘The Great Replacement and the Islamisation of Britain’. Simon is convinced that Britain is being targeted by Islam and that Muslims already wield a decisive influence over British political life.<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbhAT3iX3Ek">Watch The Forum here</a>

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The Weekly Forum - 5 March 2026

Tom Russcher MP (FVD) puts down Parliamentary QuestionsMunicipalities across the Netherlands will have to create tens of thousands of additional reception places, according to projections published by the new Minister for Asylum and Migration, Bart Van den Brink (CDA). In less than a year and a half, Van den Brink states that 38,000 new reception places will need to be built. These figures appear to contradict the broadly supported ambition to limit asylum inflow. The cabinet’s anti-migration rhetoric therefore seems little more than empty words.FVD Member of Parliament Tom Russcher has submitted parliamentary questions to obtain clarification about the new cabinet plans and to push for a significantly stricter asylum policy.Written questions from Tom Russcher MP (FVD) to the Minister for Asylum and Migration regarding the projection of tens of thousands of additional asylum reception places.<ul><li>Are you aware of the report stating that nearly 38,000 additional reception places for asylum seekers must be created before mid-2027?</li><li>How does this enormous expansion of asylum reception align with the new cabinet’s promise to limit asylum inflow?</li><li>Why are municipalities being compelled to create reception places when many are already facing a severe housing shortage for their own residents?</li><li>Is the minister prepared to repeal the dispersal law, now that it appears this law is leading to further pressure on municipalities and society?</li><li>Does the minister agree that the Netherlands should close its borders as long as there is no solution to the current reception crisis?</li><li>How does the minister explain that his predecessor, Mona Keijzer (BBB), refused to publish these projections?</li><li>How many of the current 77,500 reception places are occupied by people whose asylum applications have been rejected?</li><li>How will the minister ensure that individuals whose asylum applications have been rejected are removed from the Netherlands as soon as possible?</li><li>Does the minister agree with Forum for Democracy that the dispersal law is an undemocratic instrument that obliges municipalities and their residents to do something they did not ask for?</li><li>Does the minister agree with Forum for Democracy that the Netherlands should prioritize its own citizens, particularly the homeless, people on waiting lists for social housing, urgent cases due to divorce and young people buying or renting for the first time, over asylum seekers?</li><li>Is the minister prepared to revise Dutch asylum policy completely and bring it into line with the wishes of the majority of the Dutch population, which according to several polls favors a stricter asylum policy?</li></ul>

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Tens of Thousands of Additional Asylum Places Before Mid-2027?

If you receive money from the Dutch government, for instance a subsidy or a grant, the accounting oversight is so extensive that it costs you about 20% of the sum given. But where government spending is concerned, tens of millions can be wasted because of bureaucratic dysfunction. A bureaucratic mechanism was put in place to ensure that asylum applications are dealt with quickly: if they are not, a penalty is paid to the applicant. The goal was to incentivise government efficiency; the result is spectacular waste. It has been discovered that €36 million were paid out in 2024, €37,500 per asylum seeker. The more the procedure is delayed, the more money the asylum seeker gets – in some cases nearly a year’s salary. This is literally madness – or rather, a racket. It took FVD and its parliamentary leader, Lidewij de Vos, to find this out and to demand answers from the government.<a href="https://fvdinternational.com/article/de-vos-puts-down-parliamentary-questions-about-penalty-payments-paid-to-asylum-seekers">Read Lidewij’s questions to the government here</a><img src="/uploads/image_fb26767f8f.png">FVD International’s director, John Laughland, was a guest again last week on Mike Ryan’s The Protagonists on The World Today based in Australia, this time to discuss the censorship mechanisms within the EU. As John explained, there are currently two major censorship mechanisms in place – the sanctions regime for ‘disinformation’, recently deployed against two European citizens, and the Digital Services Act which recently imposed a €120 million fine on X – and two more in the pipeline.The ‘European Democracy Shield’ (don’t laugh!) is being put into operation&nbsp;<a href="https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_26_459">even now</a>, while at national level several states (France and Spain, to start with) intend to restrict access to social networks to people over 15 – which means that everyone will have to prove their identity even to access them. This is surely the very definition of a police state.<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukT5-9Kd8uc">Watch John Laughland on The World Today here</a><img src="/uploads/image_4f9310d30c.png">John also cranked out his rather rusty Italian to speak to Giacomo Gabellini on his podcast, Il Contesto. They discussed the increasing totalitarianism of the West, especially Europe, where control of the narrative has become the principal obsession of governments, which are increasingly dominated by ideology.<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZDFzTsdU60">Watch John’s interview here</a><img src="/uploads/image_a6702fabf5.png">We are delighted and honoured to republish a recent research piece by Cyan Quinn of the White Papers Institute. Cyan, who has been our guest on The Forum, and who is as charming as she is intelligent, argues that the truth about the Great Replacement is being hidden by faulty statistics. Some countries practise ‘colour blind’ censuses, France and Italy for instance, others include race and ethnicity in both censuses and police reports. How you define ‘an Italian’ or ‘a Dutchman’ varies from country to country according to legislation. Cyan is convinced that the overall effect of these various methods is to hide the extent to which the native populations of Europe are being replaced by immigrants.<a href="https://fvdinternational.com/article/hiding-our-replacement-how-western-governments-obfuscate-demographic-data">Read Cyan Quinn’s article here</a><img src="/uploads/image_c9475d63da.png">Scott from China was our guest on The Forum this week, to discuss how de-centralised China is. Both in terms of state structures and of the economy, power is far more dispersed, to the provinces and to private individuals, than it is in the economically and politically centralised West. The Chinese state spends only a fraction at national level what the US and European states do: the rest is spent by the provinces and localities. The same goes for the economy, where the state is effectively absent – from AI, for instance, but also from infrastructure projects like railways! De-centralisation produces competition and prosperity: this is why China is steaming ahead while Europe languishes in stagnation.<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kho5ZXWI8HI">Watch The Forum here</a>

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The Weekly Forum - 26 February 2026

We are pleased to republish&nbsp;“Hiding Our Replacement: How Western Governments Obfuscate Demographic Data,” originally published by&nbsp;The&nbsp;White Papers Institute. You can read the original article&nbsp;<a href="https://whitepapersinstitute.substack.com/p/hiding-our-replacement-how-western">here</a>. Our purpose at White Papers is to protect Western Civilization by promoting the interests and survival of the people who created it. That people group is a global minority and continues to shrink. In 1950, people of European descent&nbsp;<a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3987379/">made up 22%</a> of the world’s population. Today, that percentage has shrunk to around 12%. As with populations of endangered species like sea turtles or certain leopards, the best way to protect this people group is to preserve their habitat. The nation is the habitat of human civilization. Even within Western nations, our numbers are declining rapidly.We are not the first to come up with this parallel. In the UK, the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/DTqxlhECBIK/">red squirrel</a> serves as a mascot for those interested in defending the native British.<img src="/uploads/image_71715aaeeb.png">It was first used by the founders of the groundbreaking survey&nbsp;<a href="https://wewereneverasked.co.uk/home">We Were Never Asked</a> which shows undeniably that British citizens do not want to become a minority. (We show how these trends can be reversed&nbsp;<a href="https://whitepapersinstitute.substack.com/p/the-british-remigration-policy-platform-f0c">here</a>.)<img src="/uploads/image_22b01293f0.png"> &nbsp;This is our primary area of concern, and we collect and publish demographic data wherever possible. We believe that by presenting accurate data and illustrating the policy failures that led to our demographic decline in our own countries, we can show that there are also peaceful policy alternatives that can reverse it!However, Western governments appear to be obfuscating the data.Few Western governments collect quality demographic data in the first place, and the data they do collect is often lacking in the necessary details. Only in a couple Western countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom do the authorities work to collect decent data on race and ethnicity, but even they fall short of presenting a comprehensive understanding of the demographic reality. In Europe, the situation is worse, with governments often changing methodologies to hide the extent of demographic change. In some cases, governments have even made it illegal to collect statistics on race and ethnicity.France is the most famous and well-known example of a Western country that prohibits the collection of race and ethnicity-based data. In 1978 the French government implemented the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ssi.ens.fr/textes/a78-17-text.html#art30">Data Protection Act (Law No. 78-17)</a> which prohibits the&nbsp;<a href="https://vdare.com/articles/connerly-s-racial-privacy-initiative-the-unhappy-french-connection">collection of data on race or ethnicity</a> unless permission is given on an individual basis or a waiver is issued by the French state. This law also extends to government agencies, research, and other institutions such as universities. Furthermore, the law prohibits the digital storage of this data. These provisions have been upheld multiple times by the French courts, including as recently as December of 2007 when the Constitutional Council (the French version of a supreme court) upheld the strictest interpretation of the law.<img src="/uploads/image_7465d8a8c2.png">Another example can be found in Germany where both&nbsp;<a href="https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_gg/englisch_gg.html#p0027">Article 3 of the Basic Law (German constitution)</a> and the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_bdsg/englisch_bdsg.html#p0365">Federal Data Protection Act</a> prohibit the processing and storage of data that applies to the race and ethnicity of minority populations. This forces German government agencies and private institutions to use proxies such as “migrant background” to track the non-German population. But this methodology has its flaws. For example, ethnic Germans from Eastern Europe, Russia, and Kazakhstan that&nbsp;<a href="https://sah.org/2019/11/01/the-volksdeutsche-return/">have returned to Germany,</a> speak German, and practice Christianity are not considered German, but are instead people of a “migrant background.” Meanwhile, third-generation Turkish immigrants in the country are often classified as “German – without a migrant background” despite having no discernible German heritage.Similarly, the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.freedominfo.org/documents/sweden%20personal%20data%20act-eng.pdf">Swedish Personal Data Act of 1998</a> prohibits the collection of race, ethnic origin, or religious belief statistics by public and private entities. So this also forced the Swedish government to collect statistics on the basis of “migrant background” resulting in the same statistical anomalies. So far, in Sweden, there are not enough third-generation immigrants to significantly obscure the data. But in ten years, this will change substantially. Many hundreds of thousands of people marked as “Swedish” without a migrant background will have no Swedish heritage.Iother cases, countries attempt to collect demographic data on ethnicity but fail to collect data of usable quality. For example, the Russian 2021 census was such a disaster that government claims of 99% participation are widely disbelieved by the academic community both in the country and abroad. The&nbsp;<a href="https://www.levada.ru/en/">Levada Center</a> claims that only&nbsp;<a href="https://rtvi.com/news/po-itogam-perepisi-v-moskve-stalo-na-million-menshe-russkih-socziologi-i-demografy-govoryat-chto-etim-dannym-nelzya-doveryat/">42% of the Russian population was counted properly</a> and some 17.14 million people have no recorded ethnicity within the dataset. As a result, no one knows what the ethnic population of Russia actually is. We also have no way of knowing if the Russian population truly increased from 77.8% in 2010 to 81% in 2021 (as claimed by the government) or if the ethnic Russian population suffered a steep decline to 72% as the data estimates appear to show.New Zealand experiences similar issues with their 2023 census. Reports showed that members of the Maori and pacific immigrant communities were&nbsp;<a href="https://www.newsroom.co.nz/census-turnout-low-despite-37m-blowout">opting out</a> at rates of roughly 40 percent while nationally, about a fifth of New Zealanders did not even return their census forums at all. Obviously, this severely muddled the results. Furthermore, New Zealand only counts people who are “normally resident” in the country and does not count hundreds of thousands of temporary immigrants who may live in the country for years at a time, effectively obfuscating the true scale of demographic change in the country. As a result of widespread criticism and even an election corruption scandal tied to the census, the government scrapped the model entirely, canceled the 2028 census (and all future ones) and will turn to a data sampling model starting in 2030. It goes without saying this model will not be particularly useful to anyone interested in exactly how New Zealanders are being replaced.Failing to competently collect demographic data is one issue, but there are also countries that change their methodologies which hides the scale of demographic change. One of the most recent examples of this phenomenon is the Netherlands which used to collect data that clearly showed the Western and non-Western populations of the country. When the Dutch collected this data, it was possible to determine what the White/European population of the country was – and to reasonably calculate the native Dutch share of the population. However, the Dutch government decided to abandon this model in 2022 and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cbs.nl/en-gb/news/2022/07/cbs-introducing-new-population-classification-by-origin">switch to data based upon continent of birth.</a><img src="/uploads/image_2305bf61a2.png">Because of this change, the native Dutch population appears to have increased from 75% in 2022 to 78% in 2025. This is clearly suspicious since immigration remains high, the youth is emigrating in large numbers, and Dutch fertility is stagnant. The Dutch government is, in effect, hiding the fact that the native Dutch population is closer to 71% of the total population and is falling quite rapidly. &nbsp;Then there are Western countries that classify anyone who holds a passport as a “native” of the country, regardless of heritage. Italy and Portugal are the worst offenders. The Italian government classifies anyone, regardless of place of birth or background, as “Italian” so long as they hold an Italian passport. This resulted in millions of immigrants and second-generation immigrants being classified as “Italian” which makes the country look homogeneous on paper when anyone with eyes can tell you it definitely is not. So, while official statistics declare that Italy is 91.3% Italian with a foreign population of 5.2 million people, the reality is that there are actually about 6.2 million people of foreign birth and 1.8 to 2 million of their children. In reality, native Italians are about 82-85% of their homeland’s population, and that percentage is shrinking fast due to a combination of aging and emigration. &nbsp;A similar state of affairs persists in Portugal where the g<a href="https://www.migpolgroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/country-report-non-discrimination-DS0125059ENN.pdf">overnment</a> collects no ethnic data of any kind and classifies everyone with a Portuguese passport, regardless of place of origin, as “Portuguese.” So while&nbsp;<a href="https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2026/01/19/anti-mass-migration-leader-ventura-advances-to-second-round-of-portuguese-presidential-election/">Portuguese citizens</a> are about 84% of the country’s population, the reality is that 2 million immigrants (more than a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.portugalresident.com/interim-report-estimates-15-of-portuguese-population-are-foreigners/">million of whom arrived between 2020 and 2024)</a> constitute about 20% of the nation’s population. Second-generation immigrants, a group also classified as “Portuguese” despite lacking actual Portuguese heritage, number about 180,000-210,000. It is likely that the native Portuguese population of Portugal is no more than 78% and, much like Italy, is in rapid decline due to a combination of aging and emigration of the native youth to other parts of Europe where they expect to pursue better economic opportunities.Overall, Western countries are doing a very poor job producing quality demographic data, and we suspect they simply do not want to. We are reminded of the United States where the Department of Homeland Security claimed for more than 20 years that&nbsp;<a href="https://cmsny.org/publications/warren-11million/">the illegal alien population was only 11 million</a> before they just stopped producing any updates at all in 2022. (They notably have not produced new numbers even under the second Trump administration.)We suspect Western governments know that to tell the truth about demographic decline would cause people to reflect on their own uniqueness and the fact that the civilization we created is truly endangered and may be lost forever. Naturally, this would invite public outrage and electoral defeat of the progressive liberal class that put these policies in place. We’re here to show that this is not the end of Us. These trends can be reversed peacefully and with cooperation from non-Western countries through Remigration as long as we have the courage and the political will to do so.White Papers is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Consider giving to our mission using one of the methods below.Zelle: whitepapersinstitute@protonmail.comLinktree:&nbsp;<a href="https://linktr.ee/wppi">https://linktr.ee/wppi</a>Snail Mail: White Papers Policy, PO Box 192, Hancock, MD 21750

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Hiding Our Replacement: How Western Governments Obfuscate Demographic Data

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