SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
europe
Dutch Voters Have 'Turned the Page,' Center-Left Leader Says as Far Right Rebuked in Elections
"We’ve shown not only to the Netherlands, but also to the world that it is possible to beat populist and extreme-right movements," said Rob Jetten.
Oct 30, 2025
The leader of the Netherlands' center-left Democrats 66 Party hailed the results of Wednesday's snap parliamentary elections as proof that "millions of Dutch people have turned a page and said goodbye to the politics of negativity," with the far-right Party for Freedom set to lose 11 seats and its vehemently anti-migration leader, Geerts Wilders, appearing to have no path to a majority.
"We’ve shown not only to the Netherlands, but also to the world that it is possible to beat populist and extreme-right movements," D66 Leader Rob Jetten, who is now likely to become the Netherlands' youngest and first openly gay prime minister.
Full election results may not be known for weeks, but the Dutch news outlet NOS reported Thursday morning that the D66 was in the lead by 15,122 votes, putting Jetten in a likely position to lead talks on forming a new coalition government.
Both D66 and the Party for Freedom (PVV) were projected to win 26 seats in Parliament's 150-seat lower house.
The results represented a precipitous fall from power for PVV, which stunned observers in 2023 with its first-place finish in that year's elections, capturing 37 seats.
Wilders has led the far-right party for nearly two decades, and his surprise victory two years ago earned him the nickname the "Dutch Donald Trump" as he promoted his virulently Islamophobic rhetoric and pushed to eliminate all migration from Muslim-majority countries, end asylum, and revoke Dutch citizenship from people with dual passports.
He also called to revoke climate regulations and pull the Netherlands out of the European Union, but as the New York Times reported in an analysis of the election, Wilders "could not rally the support to turn those extreme stances into reality."
In June, Wilders—whose chants against Moroccan immigrants at a rally in The Hague led to him being convicted of inciting discrimination in 2016—withdrew his party from the governing coalition after failing to get support for his extreme anti-migration proposals.
The PVV's campaign ahead of the parliamentary elections promised those same policies and led other major parties to pledge that they would refuse to form a new coalition with Wilders.
René Hendriks, an election volunteer in the Hague, told the Times that "the Netherlands is a bit fed up" with PVV's leadership.
Jetten's party focused heavily on affordable housing, proposing the construction of 10 new cities to help solve the country's chronic housing shortage. D66 also called for "making smart use of [artificial intelligence] and digital progress" to pave the way for a four-day workweek, ending fossil fuel subsidies, the passage of an Anti-Discrimination Act, and “well-thought-out and effective policies, rather than using strong language" on migration.
D66 did shift to the right on some migration policies, however, backing a proposal requiring refugees to submit their asylum applications outside of Europe.
But Kristof Jacobs, a political scientist at Radboud University, told the Times that the election results suggest the far right in Europe may not be poised to seize power as it campaigns on anti-migration policies.
"We thought it was almost a deterministic thing, that the radical right was always going to become bigger—that they were bulletproof," Jacobs said. “Not so bulletproof after all.”
Far-right movements have recently gained favor with the public in Germany, the United Kingdom, and France, although have largely failed at actually achieving power within governments.
Jetten said as the election results came in that "the positive forces have won!"
"I want to get to work for all Dutch people," he said, "because this is the land of us all!”
Meetings to start the process of forming a new coalition government are expected to begin next week.
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Inequality by Design': EU Billionaire Wealth Soared by Over €400 Billion in 6 Months
“Europe is minting billionaires at a record rate while millions of Europeans are struggling to make ends meet," said one tax expert.
Oct 09, 2025
A worsening inequality crisis in the European Union—where the richest people pay proportionately less tax than ordinary citizens even as billionaire wealth is skyrocketing—is driving increasingly popular demand for a wealth tax, according to a report published Thursday.
The Oxfam briefing paper, A European Agenda to Tax the Superrichch, notes that "the richest 1% in the EU own nearly a quarter of all wealth while half the population shares just 3%."
The report underscores that the combined wealth of EU billionaires soared by over €400 billion ($462.2 billion) in just six months this year—the equivalent of over €2 billion ($2.3 billion) a day.
"In 2025, the EU counted nearly 500 billionaires, 39 more than in 2024," Oxfam said. "In the last year alone, a new billionaire was created, on average, every nine days in the EU. Altogether, the richest 3,600 Europeans now hold as much wealth as the poorest 181 million—equivalent to the populations of Germany, Italy, and Spain combined."
“Europe is minting billionaires at a record rate while millions of Europeans are struggling to make ends meet,” Oxfam EU tax expert Chiara Putaturo said in a statement Thursday. “This inequality is not by accident, it is by design.”
📢 EU Billionaires’ wealth surges by over €400bn in first half of 2025.That’s over €2bn a day.🔗https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/eu-billionaires-wealth-surges-over-eu400-billion-first-half-2025#TaxTheRich
[image or embed]
— Oxfam EU (@oxfameu.bsky.social) October 8, 2025 at 10:27 PM
As the report notes:
Over recent decades, EU countries have slashed taxes for the richest people and corporations, while leaving ordinary people to pay the price. Today, over 80% of tax revenue in the EU comes from taxes that fall primarily on ordinary citizens, while the wealthiest can exploit loopholes, tax havens, and special regimes to pay lower effective tax rates than nurses and teachers. In Belgium, for example, members of the richest 1% contribute just 23% tax of their incomes, which is half of what the average person contributes.
"Decades of tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations resulted in the superrich paying proportionally less taxes than ordinary citizens, eroding fairness, democracy, and social cohesion," the report states. "The EU lacks harmonized policies to curb extreme wealth concentration and tax avoidance of the wealthiest."
"Oxfam calls for bold reforms, such as an EU-wide or national tax on the superrich and transparency mechanisms like an EU assets registry, to fund social needs, climate action, and development," the publication adds. "Taxing the superrich is widely supported, is feasible, and is urgent."
The report contends that an EU-wide wealth tax of up to 5% on millionaires and billionaires could potentially bring in €286.5 billion ($331.3 billion) in yearly revenue, "enough to cover the annual needs of the new EU long-term budget proposal," while ending "harmful and wasteful" tax policies favoring the superrich would recover nearly €4 billion ($4.6 billion) annually.
While wealth taxes have been proposed in a number of European countries, including France—which according to The Economist has more billionaires than any other country in the EU—only Norway, Spain, and Switzerland have enacted a net wealth tax, according to Tax Foundation Europe.
After France's political crisis deepened this week with the resignation of another prime minister, French economist Gabriel Zucman—known globally for advocating for a wealth tax of at least 2%—called out his country's last three PMs for not taking the proposal seriously. He noted that “there is a very strong demand among the population for greater tax fairness and better taxation of the ultrarich.”
France has more billionaires than any country in the EU. A new tax on their income is a popular idea. But doing so might not bring in all that much cash econ.st/4nkboVU
[image or embed]
— The Economist (@economist.com) September 30, 2025 at 8:00 AM
The Equals podcast and Belgian-Dutch philosopher Ingrid Robeyns on Thursday explored the benefits of a wealth cap.
"The idea of a poverty line is pretty well understood. No one should have so little that they can’t afford a roof over their head or go to bed hungry at night," Equals Bulletin said. "But billions of people around the world can’t afford these basics, despite the wealth increase of billionaires over the last decade being enough to end poverty 22 times over."
Embracing the concept of a wealth cap, the publication explained: "It’s about ensuring the needs of people and planet are met so everyone can flourish. You don’t have to be a communist to agree with a wealth cap, nor does it necessarily mean rejecting a market-based economy."
New EQUALS episode is out.We ask, How Much Wealth is Too Much?Philosopher @ingridrobeyns.bsky.social explains why we need a wealth limit & how billionaires are quietly breaking democracy.🎧 Listen here 👉 www.equals.ink/p/how-much-w...
[image or embed]
— EQUALS (@equalshope.bsky.social) October 7, 2025 at 7:42 AM
How much wealth is too much? Equals cited a New Economics Foundation (NEF)/Patriotic Millionaires survey published earlier this year in which one-third of millionaires said that the "extreme wealth line"—the point beyond which their fortune is considered harmful to society and the environment—should be set at $10 million.
"Society needs novel approaches to bring this complex topic to life," NEF's Fernanda Balata and Hollie Wright said at the time, "including narratives and practical tools more apt to address the vast cultural, moral, economic, and social barriers to tackling extreme wealth."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Hundreds of Thousands Flood Cities Across Europe to Demand End to Genocide in Gaza
An estimated 250,000 people dressed in red crowded into Museum Square in Amsterdam, demanding that the Dutch government end its support for Israel.
Oct 06, 2025
Expressing solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza and pressuring Dutch officials to end their longtime support for Israel were the goals of a massive demonstration in Amsterdam Sunday—one of the largest pro-Palestine protests held in Europe over the weekend as the two-year anniversary of Israel's bombardment of the exclave approached.
“The bloodshed must stop—and we unfortunately have to stand here because we have such an incredibly weak government that doesn’t dare to draw a red line. That’s why we are here, in the hope that it helps,” protester Marieke van Zijl told the Associated Press on Sunday in Museum Square in central Amsterdam, where an estimated 250,000 people gathered.
The protests in Amsterdam and across Europe came as Israel garnered global condemnation for its interception of more than 400 humanitarians from around the world who sailed toward Gaza in recent weeks with the Global Sumud Flotilla with the aim of delivering aid to the besieged territory, where a famine was declared in August due to Israel's near-total blockade on food, water, fuel, and other necessities entering Gaza.
In Sofia, Bulgaria, citizens carried signs reading, “Gaza: Starvation Is a Weapon of War,” while in Turkey's capital of Ankara, protesters held up placards condemning Israel's genocide in Gaza, where more than 67,000 Palestinians have been killed since October 2023.
Scholars on genocide and the Holocaust have joined leading human rights organizations—including some in Israel—and United Nations experts in declaring that Israel's bombardment of Gaza is a genocide. The International Court of Justice is also considering an ongoing genocide case brought by South Africa regarding the military assault and starvation policy.
In Amsterdam, most protesters wore red in solidarity with Palestine and many displayed Palestinian flags.
In the Netherlands, the government has long been a staunch supporter of Israel but in recent months has increasingly denounced its attacks on Gaza. In July it banned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir from entering the country because they “repeatedly incited violence against the Palestinian population."
On Friday, Dutch Foreign Minister David van Weel said he was "unlikely" to grant an export license to send F-35 fighter jet components to Israel. The country's Supreme Court last week ordered the government to review the currently suspended license to determine whether reinstating it would violate international law. The Netherlands is home to one of three regional warehouses for components of the US-made fighter jets.
Marjon Rozema, a spokesperson for Amnesty International, which helped organize the demonstration, called for the Dutch government to use "all economic and diplomatic means to increase pressure on Israel.”
Mass demonstrations were also held over the weekend in countries including Spain and Italy, where demonstrators demanded the release of organizers who had been aboard the Global Sumud Flotilla.
Hundreds of thousands of people marched in Rome, Madrid, and Barcelona, home of former Mayor Ada Colau, who was among those detained by Israel last week.
Organizers in Rome said 1 million people took part in Saturday's march, which followed Friday's one-day general strike across Italy.
"Governments, especially the Italians, are not taking action against what is happening in Gaza," one university teacher told the BBC on Friday at a rally. "We're here to say that it is time to intervene and solve things."
"The Italian demonstrations for Gaza and the flotilla have been of a rather unprecedented power in recent times," said scholar Bruno Montesano on Monday. "And they have had a global resonance that is equally surprising. And perhaps its strength derived from a sort of widespread spontaneous humanitarianism, as well as from the clashing contradictions between Western liberal-democratic chatter—certainly weakened even further due to the rise of the far right—and the racist and colonial practice of supporting Israeli fascism."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular