Dutch Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp resigned late Friday amid political deadlock over what he saw as the need for tougher measures against Israel, weakening the country’s already fragile caretaker administration.
Veldkamp’s colleagues from the centrist New Social Contract (NSC) party followed him out of the caretaker government in a blow to the stability of the EU’s fifth-biggest economy.
The Netherlands’ next general election is set to take place on Oct. 29.
The Dutch government collapsed on June 3 — and then went into caretaker mode — after Geert Wilders’ far-right Party For Freedom (PVV) left over a dispute on migration policy.
After hours of fruitless debate in parliament on Friday on the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, Veldkamp — who had pushed for tougher sanctions against Israel over its renewed assault on Gaza City — said in the evening he had “insufficient confidence” he would have “the space in the coming weeks, months, or even a year to chart the course I deem necessary.”
NSC leader Nicolien van Vroonhoven said the party had sent a message that “the situation has to improve.”
“It didn’t,” she said simply. “So now steps are being taken.”
That sentiment was echoed by Deputy Prime Minister Eddy van Hijum, also from the NSC. “In short, we’re done with it … Veldkamp felt the need for additional measures against the Israeli government very strongly, but the brakes were constantly applied,” he said.
Prime Minister Dick Schoof voiced his “regret” about the withdrawal of NSC from the Cabinet in a late-night address to parliament.
“We must respect these decisions, but we deeply regret them — especially in light of the responsibility the cabinet bears in this caretaker phase,” he said.
The populist Farmer-Citizen Movement (BBB) party, one of the coalition’s two remaining partners along with the liberal People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD), fumed over the NSC’s departure, saying it left the Netherlands “rudderless.”
“While the talks were still ongoing, they walked away, leaving chaos in their wake,” the BBB party said in a statement.
Veldkamp, a former ambassador to Israel, resigned the same day a United Nations-backed food security body declared that there is a famine in Gaza and amid Israel’s renewed military offensive in the besieged coastal strip.
The health ministry in Gaza, which is under the Hamas-run government, estimates more than 60,000 Palestinians have been killed since Israel launched its assault on Gaza immediately following Hamas’ attack on Israel Oct. 7, 2023. U.N. agencies and independent experts consider the ministry’s casualty records as generally reliable.
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