Vogelaar was treated rudely and
unfairly, says Dutch opposition
THE HAGUE--“Rude,” “unfair” and “without style” is how Dutch Parliamentarians qualified on Tuesday the decision of the labour party PvdA last week to drop former Minister of Integration Ella Vogelaar. As a result Vogelaar, who had just announced in the Netherlands Antilles that she would shelve the databank for Antilleans, the referral index VIA, tendered her resignation last week Wednesday.
“Again the Netherlands Antilles is put in a negative perspective. The Netherlands Antilles receives a minister who no longer has the support of her party’s top officials,” said Democrats 66 (D66) Member of Parliament Alexander Pechtold during an emergency debate Tuesday afternoon.
But Vice-Prime Minister Wouter Bos, who is also PvdA’s political leader, said Vogelaar had gone to Curaçao as a “full-fledged” minister, with the mandate of the cabinet.
Bos said Parliament should not draw premature conclusions because the cabinet had withdrawn Vogelaar’s letter in which she confirmed that the VIA would be “parked.” He explained during Tuesday’s debate that the letter had been pulled back for “purely procedural reasons” because some members of the cabinet thought they hadn’t had sufficient input in it.
Faction leader Femke Halsema of the green party GroenLinks and Socialist Party (SP) faction leader Agnes Kant had requested Tuesday’s emergency debate. The other opposition parties, D66, the liberal democrats VVD, Christian Union (CU), Party for Freedom PVV and Rita Verdonk immediately voiced their support for the debate, which was held the same afternoon.
All opposition leaders agreed that the labour party had not treated Vogelaar fairly and decently by deciding over the weekend and Monday, while the Minister was on a working visit to Curaçao, that she no longer had PvdA’s support. The opposition wanted to know exactly when the decision had been taken to let go of Vogelaar and when the new Minister, Eberhard van der Laan, had been approached to succeed her.
With distaste Halsema concluded from Bos’ statement in Parliament Tuesday afternoon that Vogelaar hadn’t known that PvdA was ditching her.
VVD faction leader Mark Rutte: “There was a decision and she didn’t know. That is downright rude.”
Rita Verdonk, a former minister of integration, called it a “personal tragedy” for Vogelaar, whom government had sent to Curaçao for nothing, paid for by the Dutch tax payer.
PvdA faction leader Mariëtte Hamer said Vogelaar could have seen the decision coming. “That is how it works in politics. You know when it’s coming,” she added. Hamer said Vogelaar hadn’t gone because of integration. She said the Minister just was not able to manage her portfolio effectively and execute the policy to the satisfaction of the PvdA.
“She didn’t have the authority. Too often the incidents overshadowed the successes,” Hamer said. She said the policy on integration would be executed “integrally.” She didn’t specifically say what that meant for the VIA.
Bos confirmed that the cabinet’s integration policy would not change.
Rutte of the VVD said the PvdA was very much divided on the integration policy. Vogelaar had a totally different vision on integration than PvdA leader Bos. He said Hamer was serving a “very watery tea” by suggesting there were no problems. According to Rutte, Bos had said the integration policy needed to be executed in a stricter manner.
Pieter van Geel, faction leader of the governing Christian democrats CDA, said his party had been surprised to learn that Vogelaar had resigned, but it was an internal issue of PvdA. He said CDA was looking forward to a continuation of the integration policy.
Van der Laan, on his second day as the new Minister of Integration, discussed the VIA with the Senate, the First Chamber, Tuesday morning. Afterwards he said the VIA was a ticklish and complicated issue. He said he wanted to be well-informed and for that reason he had decided to meet with the Senate.
Van der Laan didn’t want to go into detail about the VIA. He said he hadn’t read Vogelaar’s letter yet and wanted to tread carefully on this issue, which he acknowledged was a sensitive matter for the Netherlands Antilles.
The Senate informed Van der Laan about its strong reservations about registering high-risk youngsters based on their ethnicity.
