FVD Leaves COVID committee, Gideon van Meijeren Explains Why

Gideon van Meijeren has decided to step down from the COVID committee. In the following statement, he explains his reasons for this decision:

I have just had to make a difficult but necessary decision: I am resigning from the parliamentary committee of inquiry on Covid with immediate effect. In this video, I will explain my decision.

My main reason for joining the parliamentary committee of inquiry was to conduct an in-depth investigation into Covid policy and to question those responsible for it. In other words: to find the truth.

But that is precisely what is being made completely impossible for me in the committee. Last week, I found out that, as a member of the Covid committee, I will not have access to the more than 3 million documents and pieces of information which the committee has requested, and that I will not be allowed to ask the main responsible parties any questions, or hardly any.

The majority of the other members of the committee have decided that only the civil servants on the staff will have access to the requested documents.  Only they will draw up the questionnaires and decide which committee members may ask which questions to which guests. It has literally been decided that the staff will conduct the investigation and that the members of parliament will only have a guiding role.

In practice, this means that, as a Member of Parliament, I have no insight into the information on which the investigation notes and questionnaires are based, I do not have the opportunity to ask the questions that I consider important, and in many cases I am not given the opportunity to question the key players myself.

This makes it impossible for me to make a serious contribution to finding the truth — which should be the core purpose of this committee.

When I found this out, I immediately objected. Last week, I discussed this with the chair of the committee, Daan de Kort. He indicated that he would continue to support the current working method, but that I was free to raise this point at the committee meeting. That meeting took place today.

I was willing to cooperate and was not demanding. The only thing I asked for, in essence, was access to the information necessary to conduct research, and on that basis to be able to question 8 to 10 people under oath for half an hour to an hour: Rutte, De Jonge, Grapperhaus, Van Dissel, Koopmans, Gommers, Aalbersberg, Akerboom, Schoof and – depending on the results of the source investigation – a handful of others. This would only take 5 to 10 hours out of the hundreds of hours reserved for the hearings.

After a heated discussion, it became clear that the committee was standing its ground. I did everything I could to convince the members of the need to change the working method, but to no avail.

The chair proposed to continue the discussion at a later date, but changing the working method was expressly ruled out. In other words, they wanted to prolong the discussion, but the decision had already been made.

This course of action is, of course, unacceptable. It undermines the essence of parliamentary control and thus touches on the core of our democracy. A parliamentary inquiry is the most powerful investigative tool at the disposal of the House of Representatives, with far-reaching powers. If even the members of an inquiry committee are denied access to the necessary information and are not given the opportunity to critically question those responsible, then there is no longer any question of finding the truth – on the contrary. Then there is control, manipulation and exclusion of critical voices and neutralisation of dissent. In short: then there is a cover-up.

Of course, I cannot and will not lend any legitimacy to this. The party fully supports me in my decision. Forum for Democracy considers truth-finding to be the highest good, on which we cannot make any concessions. If truth-finding is made impossible within the committee, then it must be done outside it. We are therefore determined to continue with this until the truth has been revealed and justice has been done.