EU anger at ‘xenophobic’ Dutch website

The Netherlands has once again some international explaining to do about Geert Wilders’ right-wing Freedom Party (PVV). The release in 2008 of his anti-Islam film Fitna caused outrage, and now the party’s website for complaints about East Europeans in the Netherlands has sparked another controversy.

The website invites people to register complaints about nuisance and job losses caused by Poles, Romanians, Hungarians and other East Europeans in the Netherlands. Respondents can also level accusations of crime, alcohol and drug abuse and prostitution at the group.

The PVV says people have in the past been reluctant to make official complaints about East Europeans because they thought nothing would be done about it. The party has undertaken to collate information from the website and present it to the Dutch government.

The website has elicited anger, especially in East and Central Europe. As early as last week, the Polish ambassador to the Netherlands gave vent to his outrage. “The picture sketched by Mr Wilders’ of hard working Poles contaminating the Dutch jobs market is an insult,” he said.


The European Commission also slammed the PVV move. Viviane Reding, the European Justice, Fundamental Rights and Citizenship commissioner, called the site “an open call for intolerance”. She went on: “In Europe we support freedom. We solve our problems by showing more solidarity, not by telling tales on fellow citizens.”

In the Netherlands, the left-wing opposition has been quick to exploit the situation. At least four website were immediately launched to poke fun at the PVV. One invited people to complain about people from the southern Dutch province of Limburg – where Geert Wilders was born. Another, calling itself the Valuable Conviviality Hotline, was launched by the Polish-Dutch rapper, Mr Polka: “Have you had a wild night out with some Poles? Let us know.”

Employers’ groups have been more seriously irritated by the PVV website. Many East Europeans do jobs which Dutch people are no longer willing to do, such as in the market gardening sector in the west of the Netherlands. The VNO-NCW employers’ organisation has condemned the PVV site as xenophobic and is calling on the government to make a point of distancing itself from it.

For more: EU anger at ‘xenophobic’ Dutch website | Radio Netherlands Worldwide