The Weekly Forum - 10 July

Following the 2023 elections in the Netherlands, a government was formed on the basis of a coalition agreement between four parties. Its budgetary provisions included a 300 million euro cut in pandemic preparedness. It was on the basis of this agreement – validated by Parliament - that the government took office. At some later point, however, the health minister was informed – by the NCTV counter-terrorism service, no less – that NATO obligations prevented the cut from being made. When FVD put down questions about these obligations, the government replied that they were secret - because NATO insists they be secret. In other words, the policy and spending decisions of NATO member states, including on domestic issues like health, are not taken by the elected government but instead in secret behind the backs of Parliament and therefore the electorate. You would have thought this would cause an outrage in the Chamber. But when FVD MP Pepijn van Houwelingen asked for a debate on this very obvious ‘black hole at the heart of our democracy’, a majority of parties voted against any debate on the matter. What are they trying to hide?

Watch Pepijn’s speech here (translated by AI)

Is there similar central control over energy policy? Just as Britain and France are making policy choices which will drive up the cost of energy and therefore drive down prosperity and growth, the Netherlands is doing the same. How can we be sure that global warming (if that is what it is) is caused by man and by CO2? Might it not be that warming is instead the cause of higher CO2 levels and not the result? The climate hysteria is all the more mysterious because even the International Panel on Climate Change, one of the main bodies pushing that hysteria, admits that there is no increase in extreme weather events like hurricanes or floods.  Nonetheless, green policies are being pursued which will make energy more expensive – as even the poor minister, under rigorous questioning from Pepijn, was forced to admit. So people will become poorer because of an unproven scientific hypothesis.

Watch Pepijn cross-examine the energy minister here (translated by AI)

FVD party leader Thierry Baudet, FVD Senator Joris van den Oetelaar and FVD International director John Laughland were the guests in Vienna this week of Heinz-Christian Strache, former Vice-Chancellor of Austria, for a meeting organised by the international Patriots network. In his speech, Thierry emphasised that power does not come from politics but instead from the media and business. Money talks. The speakers agreed that remigration was essential but differed on questions of international politics, especially on the notion of ‘Western civilisation’, which Thierry said was code for the American empire, and on the conflict in the Middle East. You can watch the debate, in German - if necessary using the ‘automatic translate’ function on Youtube.

Watch the Vienna debate here (Thierry starts at 25.35)

Eva Bartlett, who lived in Gaza for several years, was our guest on The Forum this week and shared with us her experience of the decades of suffering there before the Hamas attacks of 2023. If you missed it, listen back below.

Listen back to The Forum here