FVD has voted for two motions put down in Parliament, which garnered a majority and were therefore carried, calling for the trade component of the EU-Israel association agreement to be suspended. The motions provoked a sharp reaction from the Israeli ambassador to the Netherlands. Ambassador Vapni&nbsp;<a href="https://x.com/vapni/status/2045004083250057514">deplored</a> as ‘shameful’ ‘a dangerous coalition between the radical left and the antisemitic extreme right’. This is pretty standard-issue Israeli boilerplate – but it is false. One of the two motions was put down by an MP from the governing centre-left D66 party, which sits with Renew in the European Parliament, and an MP from the governing centre-right Christiand CDA, which sits with the European People’s Party. Both motions were supported by these two parties. So the ‘dangerous coalition’ is not between the radical left and the extreme right but also includes two eminently respectable centrist parties who are currently in government. It is precisely not the extremes alone which are criticising Israel but instead now parties from across the political spectrum.<img src="/uploads/image_1c81e16c3d.png"><img src="/uploads/image_f3160e542e.png">

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Broad Dutch Parliamentary Coalition Backs Motion to Suspend EU–Israel Trade Deal

Speech to the Second Chamber of the Netherlands States-General (Parliament)16 April 2026For a long time, I was under the impression that the instability in the Middle East, unfavourable to the Netherlands in many respects, was ultimately caused by autocratic, predominantly Islamic states.At the centre of this stood Israel, as a democratic oasis and the only foothold of the modern West, bravely resisting an irrational and aggressive environment with the support of the United States and the rest of the Western world.It was therefore our sacred duty, so I believed, to support and protect Israel. Also to ultimately prevent ourselves from being overrun by Islamic migrants with the same unfounded hatred. This is what I was brought up to believe.But, Madam Speaker, this worldview has gradually shifted.The events of 7 October 2023, when Palestinians from Gaza breached the border with Israel undetected and spread death and destruction, were shocking.However, they appeared to be used as justification for unprecedented large-scale Israeli brutality and destruction in Gaza, resulting in tens of thousands of civilian casualties and the total devastation of civilian infrastructure, whereas this shocking event could also have marked the beginning of genuine, fundamental discussions.The initial sympathy for Israel as a victim on 7 October has worldwide turned into shock and anger at the scale of what the Israelis were doing.The situation in Lebanon today unfortunately bears strong similarities. Here too, there is unprecedented brutal destruction of civilian targets, allegedly because they are Hezbollah hideouts. Even inhumane white phosphorus weapons are being used.And then Iran. This country has long been sanctioned, boycotted and opposed by the West in every conceivable way. The main reason given is that Iran is supposedly on the verge of developing a nuclear weapon.That would also pose a threat to the Netherlands.But this claim, that an Iranian nuclear bomb is only weeks away, has existed since the 1990s.&nbsp; It has been consistently denied by Iran, with the principal ideological opponent of such a bomb being the Supreme Leader Khamenei himself.He was, notably, one of the first to be deliberately targeted and killed by Israel in the war.Moreover, the nuclear site was reportedly successfully “obliterated” in 2025, according to the Americans. Senior American officials such as Tulsi Gabbard and Joe Kent have also stated that there is no evidence of an Iranian military nuclear programme.Does the minister nevertheless believe that Iran poses a nuclear threat to the Netherlands?Or are the United States, and we in their wake, being drawn into serving Israel’s agenda?The statement by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Marco Rubio, that the Israeli attack on Iran was the trigger for American action, illustrates this.The ultimate objective appears to be, as has happened with countries such as Syria and Iraq, to eliminate and destroy a potential regional adversary of Israel.The principle of “the right to strike first and then call it self-defence” has become an Israeli/American hallmark: the pre-emptive strike.A simpler term for this behaviour is “aggression”.It strongly appears that Israel, at least the Netanyahu government, is not seeking peace in the region, but domination.The dream of “Greater Israel”, from the Nile to the Euphrates.We are now convinced that the threat Israel feels is largely the result of its own actions, with the United States following in its wake.The Netherlands must not support the current American/Israeli policy of violence, intimidation and bad-faith negotiations.Iran does not pose a threat to the Netherlands.The path to peace in the Middle East, and thereby to stability in the Dutch national interest, must run through diplomacy.A radical change and limitation of Israeli ambitions and approach are essential for this, alongside a fully-fledged two-state solution.The current explosive stalemate, from which neither party can escape, offers a unique opportunity for radical solutions.

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Ralf Dekker on the Middle East

Thierry Baudet, FVD’s founder and president, and John Laughland, director of FVD International, attended the ‘U-Turn for Europe’ conference, which FVD sponsored, in Vienna last weekend. The goal is to create a conservative network dedicated to rediscovering and restoring European civilisation. The organiser, Stefan Korte, who lives near Dresden, has obtained the patronage of Leo Hohenberg, otherwise known as Prince Leo von Hohenberg, the great-grandson of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, whose assassination on 28 June 1914 sparked off the First World War. In addition to his personal talents and charm, Prince Leo’s patronage of this wonderful endeavour is a huge honour. In his talk, Thierry spoke about meta-politics – FVD’s phenomenal undertakings&nbsp;<a href="https://jfvd.nl/">with young people</a>, in the food sector (<a href="https://eerlijketen.nl/">Eerlijk Eten</a>), with the&nbsp;<a href="https://forumapp.nl/">Forum App</a>, various other ambitious plans -while John addressed the question of how to define European civilisation.<a href="https://fvdinternational.com/article/can-we-define-european-civilisation">Read John’s lecture here</a><img src="/uploads/image_2d107885fc.png">John Laughland was also once again a guest on Stanislav Krapivnik’s podcast, In the Eyes of Truth, this week. They discussed the psychotic nature of the post-truth world Donald Trump and his administration have created. One minute, the Iran war was won on Day One, the next Trump is threatening to defeat Iran and demanding NATO’s help to do so, while denouncing the alliance as a paper tiger which will never help the USA. Is the point of all this to destabilise opponents or it is just what it appears to be, just incoherent rambling?&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JVIplUc4lw">Watch John’s interview here</a><img src="/uploads/image_d9f698b0a1.png">Viktor Orban has been defeated after 16 years in power. This is a very severe setback for conservative and patriotic movements across Europe. There is much talk of AfD and the Rassemblement national but Orban was in power, unlike them, and for a very long time indeed. He managed to create a regional network of opposition to the EU’s warmongering, including Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Serbia and Republika Srpska in Bosnia. Now the central link of that chain has broken. The Prime Minister designate, Peter Magyar, Made in Brussels, has lost no time using an old Hungarian irredentist trope to declare his hostility to Slovakia, where PM Robert Fico is the only anti-war head of government left in the EU.&nbsp; David Engels has written a long piece reflecting on the fall-out from Orban’s defeat, which we are honoured to republish.<a href="https://fvdinternational.com/article/the-end-of-an-era-times-up-for-orban">Read David Engels’ piece here</a><img src="/uploads/image_c8e10fef15.png">George Szamuely and Kit Klarenberg were our guests on The Forum this week. Together with John Laughland, they are British citizens who have been held for hours at Britain’s borders and interrogated by the security services. These ordeals are, alas, proof that the UK has become a repressive state.<a href="https://theforumfriends.substack.com/p/the-forum-and-friends-repression-2fb">Watch The Forum &amp; Friends here</a>

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The Weekly Forum - 16 April 2026

Can we define European civilisation&nbsp;?John LaughlandLecture given at the U-Turn for Europe conference, Vienna, 11 April 2026Many people have tried to define European civilisation, with varying degrees of success.&nbsp; In his great television series made in the late 1960s, the British art historian Kenneth Clark stood on the Pont des Arts in Paris, the Institut de France on one side of the river, the Louvre on the other, with Notre Dame upstream, and said, ‘What is civilisation?&nbsp; I don’t know. I can’t define it in abstract terms – yet.&nbsp; But I think I can recognise it when I see it.’&nbsp; This is perhaps a rather pragmatic, British approach.&nbsp; The contemporary French historian, Rémi Brague, has no such inhibitions.&nbsp; For him, Europe is&nbsp;la Romanité,&nbsp;Roman-ness: to be European is to be an child of Rome, Rome being the synthesis of Athens, Jerusalem and Rome, all three of which, Brague claims, have a sense of an inherited civilisation which they wish to nurture and transmit to future generations.&nbsp; He uses the metaphor of the aqueduct to convey this idea.I would like to build upon Brague’s argument to say that the distinctive feature of European civilisation lies in its conception of the state.&nbsp; The state in European civilisation is the link between ‘things divine and things human’, to quote what the Emperor Justinian said about justice in Book I of his Institutes.&nbsp; This is certainly not to make the state divine.&nbsp; It is instead to say that the state makes real the most important of all the values, justice.&nbsp; Virtues, indeed, including justice, are the very basis of statehood.&nbsp; In the opening lines of the&nbsp;Magna Moralia, Aristotle says that ethics is a subcategory of statehood because you cannot have a state without virtuous citizens.&nbsp; However, the relationship between the highest objective values and the state is two-way: the role of the state is also to promote those values.&nbsp; Aristotle says that politics is the highest of all the arts&nbsp;(Magna Moralia 1182b), the sum of all other associations (Politics Chapter 1), and that ‘the goal of politics is the good of man’ (Nicomachean Ethics, Book I, 1094a).&nbsp; ‘Political association has as its end the virtue and the happiness of individuals and not just life in common.’ (Nicomachean Ethics, Book III, 1281a); ‘and this is why justice is often considered to be the most perfect of all virtues, neither the evening nor the morning star are as admirable’ (NE 1129b).&nbsp; For Aristotle, the state is the association of beings who have a sense of good and evil, justice and injustice, which they enjoy as a result of being animals endowed with reason (Politics, Book 1).&nbsp; Man alone has this faculty.&nbsp; The state is prior to the family and the individual because ‘the individual, when isolated, is not self-sufficing.’&nbsp; Justice is the bond of states (Politics 1253a).&nbsp; Without the state, man is a ferocious beast or a God.&nbsp; For His part, God is not an ‘imperative ruler’&nbsp;(‘epitaktikos archon’,&nbsp;Eudemian Ethics 1249b line 14) but is the end with a view to which prudence (phronesis) issues its commands.&nbsp;&nbsp;In other words, civilisation – which precisely means living in a city, life in the city (in the sense of ‘polis’) - is the means by which man uses his highest faculties to tend towards perfection, towards God.&nbsp; European civilisation is based on a concept of natural law, which it is the state’s role to emulate and to make real.&nbsp; This is, by the way, also the distinguishing feature of European art, which is more glorious than the art of any other civilisation.&nbsp; When we see a great painting or hear a great piece of music, its greatness lies precisely in the intimations of the transcendent which inspire it.&nbsp; European art tries to depict or evoke the divine, something which, for instance, Islamic art never does because any representation of the divine is strictly forbidden as blasphemous.&nbsp; Islamic art is just decoration.&nbsp; European civilisation is based on a particular intersection between the particular and the universal: the particular embodies the universal and the universal inheres in the particular.If we contrast this approach with the Jewish and Islamic approaches, we will see the difference.&nbsp; The Jewish tradition to statehood is a very tenuous one; in fact, it is almost hostile.&nbsp; The ancient Israelites were initially tribes which appointed ‘judges’ to rule over them only when there were disputes between them, rather like Roman dictators.&nbsp; The history of the United Kingdom of Israel was very short, about a century, before it split.&nbsp; Those kings – Saul, David and Solomon – were more mystical figures than political ones.&nbsp; David wrote the Psalms, Solomon built the temple and issued his famous ‘judgement’.&nbsp; But that judgement was precisely not political but instead moral.&nbsp; Moreover, the execution of Christ was obtained by the Jews by specifically renouncing any claim to political sovereignty and instead instrumentalising their subjection in order to pursue a religious goal: ‘We have no other king but Caesar!’ (Gospel of St John, 19:16).&nbsp; After the destruction of Jerusalem, Judaism has continued to exist in every state in the world for two millennia without being incorporated in a state of its own: the recent state of Israel is not specifically religious and there are more Jews outside it than in it.Islamic civilisation is almost exactly the opposite.&nbsp; It is precisely a political religion, in the sense that sharia law is a structure of rules for the whole of life.&nbsp; It would be entirely incompatible with Islam to leave secular life to human rules alone: the distinction between temporal and secular power simply does not exist.&nbsp; On the contrary, it is rejected as relegating God outside of human affairs.&nbsp; The original Arab conquests were just that – conquests, i.e. the establishment of political rule over new territories.&nbsp; In&nbsp;La Loi de Dieu Rémi Brague says that the oldest surviving document in the history of Islam is a tax receipt from an Egyptian to his new Arab overlord.&nbsp; Islam is therefore directly a form of political rule, as the concept of the ummah (the Islamic ‘nation’) expresses.&nbsp; The division of the world between&nbsp;dar al Islam and&nbsp;dar al-Harb&nbsp;(the land of peace, the land of war) is precisely political, there being no more eminently political division than the one between war and peace.So whereas Judaism is eminently unpolitical and hostile to the state, Islam is the state.&nbsp; Whereas the divine in Islam cannot be represented, and whereas the name of God cannot be uttered by the Jews, Christian civilisation is based, like Greek and Roman, on the conviction that the divine can be shown and can show itself in human affairs. The distinction between spiritual and temporal power is not today’s separation between Church and State, a separation which has caused both Church and State to wither.&nbsp; On the contrary, the interpenetration of the secular and the divine invigorates both of them.In 1940, as Europe was entering one of its darkest hours, Pope Pius XII began excavations under the high altar of St Peter’s basilica.&nbsp; The archaeologists discovered there an entire Roman necropolis – one of the many wonders of that wonderful city.&nbsp; Soon enough they located the Constantinian shrine built on the pilgrimage site where for centuries Christians had come to venerate St Peter’s tomb – he had been martyred in the Vatican stadium – and eventually the saint’s relics themselves.&nbsp; We should see in this extraordinary decision by Pope Pacelli, to dig down, quite literally, to the very foundations of our civilisation, a delightful metaphor and model for our own quest in today’s dark times as well.<img src="/uploads/image_297a899575.png">

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Can We Define European Civilisation?

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The End of an Era: Time's Up for Orbán

As the Iran war flits from one grotesque extreme to another, like a flying carpet, the Ukraine war grinds on remorselessly, bogged down in the black earth of the steppe. While the various fronts of the war in the Middle East change by the minute, the war in the Ukraine is the same as it was last year and the year before that. Certainly, the West’s approach has not budged: ever more sanctions against Russia, ever more billions shovelled into the war. Ralf Dekker MP recently reminded the Dutch parliament that the Netherlands has sent 21 billion euros directly to Ukraine since the war started and continues to send 3 billion every year in military aid. These are only the visible costs and do not include the cost of refugees, higher energy prices, markets closed to business, and so on. While ordinary Europeans are struggling to make ends meet, the honey pot never runs dry for the Ukrainians. FVD’s position is clear: stop this madness, it is not our war.<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArbhFOXhJPI">Watch Ralf Dekker’s speech here</a><img src="/uploads/image_e87e94dc6b.png">Meanwhile the European political establishment is determined, perhaps more than anything else, to kill off its own population through abortion, while simultaneously replacing it with other populations through industrial levels of immigration. The right to abortion has become one of the supreme moral reference points of our age. Support for it is so extreme that it goes way beyond what the law itself allows. As Gideon van Meijeren MP recently recalled, abortion law decriminalises certain acts under certain conditions, it does not create a right. In particular, doctors must tell women who want abortions about the alternatives. In reality, this does not happen. On the contrary, you can now obtain abortion pills online without consultation. This is a crime in Dutch law – but it is ignored. What would we say if you could order suicide pills legally by post? You could perhaps argue on the basis of consent – a consent which is, to put it mildly, absent from the unborn child. Can we not at least agree that the law should be enforced? Apparently not, but only FVD seems to care.<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6axGIgloOEA">Watch Gideon’s van Meijeren’s speech here</a><img src="/uploads/image_a60352bb6d.png">Why does FVD always stand out from the crowd? Because FVD is genuinely interested in life, creativity and the unexpected. This is the opposite approach to that of the careerist politicians who smother all inventiveness in the name of security, procedure and stability.&nbsp; Peter van Duijvenvoorde MP recently bemoaned the stifling conformism of Dutch and European universities – something which did not exist a generation ago when different universities offered different, sometimes opposing, views of life. Now they have all been&nbsp;gleichgeschaltet through political correctness and the dead hand of bureaucracy – bureaucracy which believes that it can and should direct the pursuit of knowledge to so-called ‘useful’ ends. This is nothing but the politicisation of science which, like the politicisation of the arts, kills it.<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MH7PdS-ZKhU">Watch Peter van Duijvenvoorde’s speech here</a> <img src="/uploads/image_61fa292504.png">Tom Russcher MP has teamed up with the prominent influencer Dutch Travel Maniac to shed light on the terrifying lawlessness of asylum centres. These centres exist all over Europe and in the Netherlands. DTM has made videos about them and the crime and abuse which festers in and around them: drug dealing, weapons, violence, sexual assault - you name it. DTM’s videos –&nbsp;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XZ5XclNBkA">here</a> and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dielIirf8M">here</a> – are superb examples of investigative journalism (naturally, never carried out by legacy MSM) and truly shocking. Please take time to read the questions. You will shake your head in disbelief that our collective suicide is so far advanced.<a href="https://fvdinternational.com/article/dutch-travel-maniac-exposes-abuses-and-misconduct-at-the-Central-Agency-for-the-Reception-of-Asylum-Seekers-Tom-russcher-submits-parliamentary-questions">Read Tom Russcher’s questions here</a><img src="/uploads/image_e940e85973.png">Marta Havryshko, a Jewish Ukrainian academic based in Massachusetts, was our guest on The Forum this week, together with classicist and journalist Isabelle Buhre, to discuss forced mobilisation in Ukraine. If you missed it, you can watch back by clicking below. <a href="https://theforumfriends.substack.com/p/the-forum-and-friends-forced-mobilisation">Watch The Forum &amp; Friends here</a>

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The Weekly Forum - 8 April 2026

Europe is about to be plunged into a long and severe recession thanks to the Iran war, which the USA and Israel are losing. To be sure, Iran is suffering greatly but bombs continue to penetrate Israel’s so-called ‘Iron Dome’, including onto essential IDF military control centres; US fighter jets are shot out of the sky and AWACS surveillance planes destroyed on the ground; and thirteen US military bases across the Gulf have been severely damaged. The increasingly erratic American president, and the warmongering Israeli prime minister, appear to have launched their war of aggression with no strategic planning or exit strategy. Stated war aims change every day. Trump’s latest message to the Europeans – if you want Gulf oil, go and get it yourselves – spells the end of the Atlantic Alliance, which is the intellectual framework, or straitjacket, of swathes of the European political class, especially in the Netherlands where the governing VVD party is essentially a NATO regional office. Only FVD keeps focussed on reality. Ralf Dekker MP addressed these sombre developments in a speech in Parliament this week, stressing the dark times ahead and the overriding need to protect the Dutch people. Incredibly, as severe energy shortages loom, the Dutch government continues to refuse to open the Groningen gas field, the largest in Europe, all because of insane climate policy. Surely this is collective madness – or, rather, suicide.<a href="https://fvdinternational.com/article/the-war-against-iran-the-netherlands-should-stay-out-and-look-after-its-own-people">Read Ralf’s speech here</a><img src="/uploads/image_70ea715363.png">Meanwhile, as if the future were not dark enough, enemies are trying to blacken the past as well. A recent vote in the UN General Assembly has referred to slavery as a crime against humanity. This will no doubt be used to demand reparations from European countries– but not from the Arab and African slave traders from whom they bought their workforce. The main problem with this is that it was the European states who brought an end to the slave trade – Britain first, then the whole of Europe at the Congress of Vienna in 1815. Moreover, although it was then condemned in the name of ‘the principles of humanity’, the concept of a ‘crime against humanity’ was not formulated until 1945.&nbsp; Nullum crimen sine lege. As usual, only FVD understands and warns about the dangers this resolution represents. Tom Russcher MP and Ralf Dekker MP have put down questions to the Dutch government about it.<a href="https://fvdinternational.com/article/will-the-un-resolution-on-slavery-lead-to-more-development-aid-and-even-reparations">Read Ralf’s and Tom’s questions here</a><img src="/uploads/image_55a35a11c7.png">FVD International’s director John Laughland was once again a guest on Ian Proud’s ‘Peacemonger’ podcast recently. Ian is doing a fabulous job bringing together realist commentators to discuss current events. John and Ian discussed the ongoing outrage of EU sanctions against individuals, including EU citizens. These are punitive measures taken for explicitly political reasons (the EU defends them&nbsp;<a href="https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/policies/why-sanctions/">saying</a> they are part of foreign policy). Although the EU denies the sanctions are punitive, which is a contradiction in terms since a sanction is a punishment, it also insists that breaking sanctions is a crime. All this is done outside any judicial framework: what judicial review there is takes place only after the event and usually fails to change the EU’s mind. In other words, the victim has to prove his innocence! Apparently this is the new Brussels understanding of the rule of law.<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZ59nOjZ94Y">Watch John Laughland’s interview here</a><img src="/uploads/image_ba5ac534a1.png">FVD International is sponsoring a conference on European values in Vienna next weekend.&nbsp; Please sign up and attend! The 39€ fee includes lunch and dinner. Thierry Baudet and John Laughland will both be speaking.<a href="https://uturnforeurope.com/index_en.html">Sign up for the Vienna conference here</a><img src="/uploads/image_5ed66d891f.png">The Substack of our weekly podcast, The Forum and Friends, is now live. All our past podcasts are available there and we will be publishing articles, especially by our guests.&nbsp; Please visit the page and leave your comments.<a href="https://theforumfriends.substack.com/">Visit The Forum and Friends Substack here</a><img src="/uploads/image_a768bb4438.png">Stephen Baskerville was our guest on The Forum this week, to discuss why the Right always loses. If you missed it, watch back!<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58cZW7yDaqU">Watch The Forum and Friends here</a>

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The Weekly Forum - 3 April 2026

26 March 2026Chair,The war against Iran, recently initiated by Israel and the United States, does not appear likely to end in the short term. There had been expectations of a kind of “Venezuela-style surprise scenario,” but Iran clearly proves to be of a different order.Despite devastating attacks causing significant damage and casualties, there is no visible sign of a popular uprising within Iran, the very outcome that these attacks appeared to be aiming for.Nor is there any clear evidence of Iran being militarily weakened, at least not in terms of the intensity and effectiveness of its counterattacks.Iran has now effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz. Only vessels from non-hostile states are allowed through, and even they must pay substantial tolls. Moreover, they are required to trade their oil and other goods in yuan rather than in dollars.In response to American attacks, Iran is also targeting U.S. bases in surrounding countries, as well as parts of their oil and gas production.The economic consequences are a sharp global decline in production and rising oil and gas prices, disruption of global logistics routes, and an impending shortage of crucial products on the world market, such as essential chemicals and fertilisers. As long as Iran holds out and its demands are not met, there is no end to this situation in sight.There are significant risks of further escalation, Iran appears both willing and capable of doing so, with potentially unforeseeable consequences on a global scale.Direct military involvement by major powers such as Russia and China cannot be ruled out.All in all, deeply concerning for both the short and the long term.The most appropriate position for the Netherlands in this geopolitical conflict would seem to be one of restraint. Attempting to reopen the Strait of Hormuz by force, as long as Iran remains standing, is an almost impossible military task, a suicide mission.Participation in such an effort is not the path we should take.As for the economic impact on the Netherlands, it is evident that a severe global energy shortage is looming.For example, the production capacity of Qatar, an important LNG supplier for the Netherlands, has been severely reduced in the medium term. The fill level of Dutch gas reserves has dropped to an unprecedented low of 5.8%. This means high costs and potential shortages for the Netherlands as well.In this context, it is absolutely necessary to immediately halt the closure of the Groningen gas fields.The Netherlands sits on the largest natural gas field in Europe. It must be reopened as soon as possible.At present, the above-ground infrastructure for gas extraction in Groningen is being physically dismantled. This must stop immediately, as this infrastructure cannot simply be rebuilt.If this process continues, our ability to resume gas extraction in the long term will disappear.Furthermore, it is high time to reopen dialogue with Russia, in order to explore the possibility of reconnecting to Russian gas supplies. Part of the Nord Stream pipeline could still be utilised for this purpose.As a short-term measure, reducing excise duties, particularly for the most vulnerable sectors that cannot pass on fuel costs, should be seriously considered.Heroically joining the American-Israeli attacks is not the right course of action. Reducing the energy bills for the Dutch people is.Taboos surrounding Groningen gas and/or Russian gas, upheld in this House for ideological reasons, are no longer realistic.Thank you.

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The War Against Iran: the Netherlands should stay out and look after its own people

26 March 2026Tom Russcher and Ralf Dekker today submitted written questions to the Minister of Foreign Affairs regarding the UN resolution, in which the transatlantic slave trade is described as “the gravest crime against humanity”. The resolution was adopted after almost all African, Middle Eastern and Asian countries voted in favour. The Netherlands, like many other European countries, abstained. Only Israel, Argentina and the United States voted against.Creating a hierarchy of historical crimes is concerning and may have far-reaching consequences for the interpretation of history. At present, it is still unclear what the legal and financial implications will be. However, the adopted resolution undeniably provides the Global South with political backing when it comes to matters such as reparations. The position of Forum for Democracy is clear: no further development aid, no reparations, and no oikophobic approach to history.The written questions from FVD MPs Tom Russcher and Ralf Dekker can be found below.Questions from the Tom Russcher (FVD) and the Ralf Dekker (FVD) to the Minister of Foreign Affairs regarding the UN resolution on the transatlantic slave trade:<ul><li>Are you aware of the UN resolution that designates the transatlantic slave trade as “the gravest crime against humanity” ever?</li><li>Can you explain why the Netherlands abstained from voting rather than voting against?</li><li>Do you share the view that creating a hierarchy of historical atrocities is undesirable? If not, why not? If so, why did the Netherlands not vote against?</li><li>Do you agree that numerous other atrocities are implicitly downplayed by this resolution? If not, why not? If so, why did the Netherlands not vote against?</li><li>How will you ensure that this resolution does not in any way lead to financial obligations for the Netherlands?</li><li>Do you acknowledge that international law at the time of the slave trade did not prohibit slavery, and that retroactive application of modern standards is legally untenable? If not, why not?</li><li>Do you agree that there is no right to reparations for actions that were not illegal under international law at the time? If not, why not?</li><li>How do you assess the call in the resolution to engage in dialogue on reparations for descendants of enslaved people?</li><li>Can you rule out that the Netherlands will, under pressure from this resolution, move towards reparations in the future, in any form?</li><li>Are you prepared to reconsider the previously issued apologies for the slavery past, now that these are being used as leverage for financial claims? If not, why not?</li><li>Do you agree that the apologies offered by Prime Minister Rutte in 2022 and King Willem-Alexander in 2023 have proven to be a strategic mistake, as they have opened the door to further demands?</li><li>Do you believe that modern Dutch citizens bear responsibility for actions that took place centuries ago?</li><li>Are you aware of the historical phenomenon of white slavery in Arab and North African countries, including the so-called Barbary slave trade in which an estimated more than one million Europeans were captured and enslaved, and do you agree that singling out European countries as perpetrators presents an incomplete and misleading picture of history?</li><li>Do you consider it fair that current generations of Dutch taxpayers are held financially liable for historical events in which they had no part?</li><li>Why does this resolution focus exclusively on the transatlantic slave trade and not on the Arab slave trade, which lasted longer and is estimated to have claimed as many or more victims?</li><li>Did the Netherlands, during deliberations in the General Assembly, draw attention to slavery that still exists today in parts of Africa and the Middle East?</li><li>Do you agree that it is hypocritical for countries where modern slavery still occurs to be co-sponsors of a resolution on historical slavery, especially given that at the time these countries actively sold their own people to traders from around the world?</li><li>How does this resolution relate to the fact that the Netherlands was one of the first countries to abolish slavery?</li><li>Do you consider it appropriate to continue providing development aid to countries that simultaneously demand reparations from the Netherlands?</li><li>Can the minister confirm that slavery was a global phenomenon that existed in virtually all civilisations, and that selectively pointing to Western European countries creates a distorted historical narrative?</li><li>Do you agree that the Dutch people do not benefit from a persistent culture of guilt over historical events?</li></ul>

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Will the UN resolution on slavery lead to more development aid and even reparations? FVD submits parliamentary questions

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FVD is a anti-globalist political party in the Netherlands founded and led by Thierry Baudet. John Laughland (right) is director of FVD International.

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