Speech: Lidewij de Vos at the Europe of Sovereign Nations Summit (Berlin, 26 June 2026)

Thank you, dear friends, for welcoming Forum for Democracy into the wonderful Europe of Sovereign Nations family.

Ever since its creation two years ago, we have admired you for the courage with which you defend our common values and the future of our children.

In the past two years, we have made friends with some of the leaders of ESN and we look forward to making many more in the future. We would like to thank every party member who has been supportive of our membership of the party.

We feel that we are coming home. In 2023, Forum for Democracy was one of the signatories of the Budapest declaration and in 2024 of the Sofia Declaration. These provided a basis for the future ESN group.

Let me say a few words about FVD. We were first founded in 2016, when Thierry Baudet launched a national referendum campaign against the EU association agreement with Ukraine. We won with 61% of the vote, but the then Dutch government of Mark Rutte simply ignored the will of the people and the association agreement was signed nonetheless.

At the time, we were told that the association agreement would prevent war. We were told the association agreement would ensure Ukraine never joined the EU. All lies. How different Europe would be today if FVD and the Dutch people had been listened to ten years ago!

In 2017 FVD entered Parliament for the first time and in 2019 we were the largest national party in the Provincial elections. Now, we are by far the biggest party in the Netherlands in terms of members – approaching 80,000 fully paid up members – and reach over 10% of votes in national polls.

FVD is not just a political party, it is a movement. Because we are convinced that political change does not come from politics alone. Instead, it comes from intellectual, social, cultural and economic change - from metapolitics! We therefore devote huge effort to building up a parallel ecosystem, a parallel society – a parallel civilisation which, we are sure, will one day be the dominant civilisation.

Our members have access to the Forum app which enables them to link with each other for commercial and social purposes. With one click, you can see fellow FVD-ers who want to sell their car, let out their flat, or fix your bathroom. The goal of this app is to bring FVD-ers into contact with one another for their daily lives.  

Our youth movement, JFVD, is by far the biggest youth movement in the country and Benelux and organises annual summer camps with lectures, cultural outings and sport.

FVD International organises a weekly podcast in English with some of the most famous intellectuals in the world commenting on international affairs.

We are very proud to announce that in August our very first primary school will open its doors! And we aspire more: a high school and one day perhaps a university.

Our think-tank, the Renaissance Institute in central Amsterdam, already organises weekly lectures on history, philosophy, culture and politics. It organises twice yearly ‘academies’ in which our young activists learn everything they were not taught at school - about the greatness of European history, about Europe’s great political philosophers, about the meaning of law and nationhood.

We would love to extend this principle to the ESN family and we warmly invite you - and especially your youth movements - to be in touch with us to set up a European Renaissance Academy to work on Europe’s cultural and civilisational re-birth.

We are looking forward to our future cooperation. Thank you again for welcoming us into this wonderful party. Together, let us make Europe sovereign again!