BRUSSELS — Ursula von der Leyen has summoned her team of European commissioners to a meeting to try to defuse mounting tensions and improve the way they work. The meeting is set for Feb. 4 in Leuven and is open to all members of the College, though attendance is not mandatory, according to a Commission official involved in organizing the event. The idea for such a meeting was conceived after tense exchanges between commissioners and frustration at the repeated late arrival of files on the desks of top officials, Commission officials said. POLITICO spoke to eight officials from different commissioners’ cabinets, all of whom were granted anonymity to speak candidly about the internal dynamics. While the meeting will focus on competitiveness and will feature a special guest — IMF Managing Director and former Commission Vice President Kristalina Georgieva — also on the agenda are discussions on “geopolitics in the current context and the working methods of the European Commission,” Commission deputy chief spokesperson Arianna Podestà told POLITICO. The latter element was prompted by what staffers inside the Berlaymont, the Commission’s HQ, describe as an unusually tense atmosphere. The spark for the idea of the meeting, according to four of the Commission officials, was a tense exchange in early December in which Dan Jørgensen, the energy commissioner, confronted Executive Vice President Teresa Ribera during a meeting of the College of Commissioners — as first reported in Brussels Playbook. Jørgensen will be attending the Feb. 4 meeting, his team said. Ribera’s team did not respond. | Thierry Monasse/Getty Images Both commissioners declined to comment on the incident but one official said Jørgensen had raised his voice when confronting Ribera, while another said the Danish commissioner “made a point toward Ribera that was unusually forceful by College standards” as they discussed a key environmental file. Jørgensen will be attending the Feb. 4 meeting, his team said. Ribera’s team did not respond. Meetings of the full College in the new year are not unusual, and in fact have been a regular practice since 2010, Podestà told POLITICO. However, this one features a session explicitly dedicated to finding better working methods and preventing differences of opinion between commissioners from getting out of hand. Descriptions of the meeting varied, with one official calling it “talks” rather than a formal team-building exercise, and another describing it as “a working group on working methods.” Several Cabinets are growing frustrated with files arriving on their desk just hours before College meetings, or late at night, on the weekend, or on the eve of the presentation of legal proposals. “This prevents us from working professionally,” one official said. “Of course emergencies happen but this can’t be the norm.” The frustration peaked during the presentation of the EU’s long-term budget plan last July, when official figures were reportedly shared with commissioners only hours before the presentation. According to officials close to von der Leyen’s Cabinet, the late arrival of the budget figures was justified as a tactic to prevent leaks. But the approach has only deepened irritation inside the College. According to one official, the “altercation” between Jørgensen and Ribera also concerned fast-tracking files. To get a file presented to the College, an executive vice president must “push the button” (Berlaymont jargon for putting something on the agenda). Faced with a tight deadline to examine the details of a file — the environmental omnibus, designed to simplify green rules — Ribera decided to wait before pushing the button, as she is entitled to do, according to her team. This led to tensions with Jørgensen, a fellow member of the socialist family. One Commission official noted that both center-left commissioners lead teams “with strong views,” making friction likely. “There’s a lot more infighting in [the] College than one might think,” a Commission official said. Some of these frictions reflect genuine differences of opinion but are magnified by a highly centralized system, in which many decisions must get approval on the 13th floor of the Berlaymont — home to von der Leyen’s Cabinet. “The way it works now creates situations that are avoidable and some problems where there aren’t any,” another official said. Jørgensen and Ribera are not the only pair under strain. Tensions have surfaced between Executive Vice President Stéphane Séjourné and Health Commissioner Olivér Várhelyi, for example, particularly over the Biotech Act. Várhelyi has long objected to the package’s non-health elements, and insiders say his resistance has only hardened as Séjourné pushes a broader industrial strategy. Two officials also said Várhelyi’s behavior is sometimes interpreted as provocative — keeping his phone ringtone on or sprawling in his chair. According to the same officials, Várhelyi has even insisted that only von der Leyen, not fellow commissioners, may substitute for him at events. Neither Séjourné nor Várhelyi responded to requests for comment. Séjourné will not be present at the seminar, as he is taking part in ministerial discussions in Washington on critical raw materials, but will submit written contributions, according to his team. Várhelyi did not confirm if he would be attending the Feb. 4 meeting. Commission officials say that friction between EVPs and other commissioners is almost built into the system. EVPs are meant to coordinate and oversee the work of others, whereas under EU law all commissioners are supposed to be equal. That ambiguity, one official said, is manageable on good days, but doesn’t help when tempers flare. Von der Leyen did not respond to requests for comment. The meeting comes ahead of an EU leaders’ retreat on competitiveness scheduled for Feb. 12.

The leaders of three Dutch political parties said Tuesday they had agreed in principle to form a minority coalition government after months of negotiations.   The centrist D66 party, which took first place in last October’s election, the center-right Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) and the liberal People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) will join forces in a coalition that will only hold 66 seats in the Netherlands’ lower house of parliament, 10 seats short of a majority. Minority governments are rare in the Netherlands. D66’s leader, 38-year-old Rob Jetten, will be the youngest Dutch prime minister in history. He appeared alongside CDA and VVD’s leaders Tuesday night and said the three “still have a few final details” to iron out before their coalition agreement is formally presented Friday, but sounded an optimistic note.   “We’re really looking forward to getting started,” said Jetten. He added the new government’s priorities would be affordable housing, controlling migration and investing in defense. The Cabinet could be sworn in by the Dutch king by the end of February.  VVD’s leader, Dilan Yeşilgöz, who has previously served as a justice minister, said she hadn’t decided whether she will take a post in the new government.  October’s election saw D66 surge to victory, narrowly overtaking Geert Wilders’ far-right Party for Freedom (PVV), which previously was the largest party in a coalition government marked by infighting. That coalition eventually collapsed after a dispute over asylum policy saw Wilders withdraw his party’s support. 

Listen on * Spotify * Apple Music * Amazon Music “A little less conversation, a little more action.” That line from an old Elvis Presley song could double as a critique of Europe’s position right now — and as a prescription. On this episode of EU Confidential, host Sarah Wheaton speaks with former Spanish foreign minister, Arancha González-Laya, about how Europe should operate at a moment when power is exercised more bluntly and patience for rules is wearing thin. Her core argument echoes Presley’s advice: Europe isn’t powerless — it just needs to use the leverage it already has. González-Laya, an ex-EU trade negotiator and now dean of the Paris School of International Affairs at Sciences Po, explains what Europe’s leverage looks like in practice: deeper cooperation on energy and defense, and a more assertive use of the internal market. She describes these as Europe’s antidotes to Trump-era chaos — exemplified by his renewed claims over Greenland and the capture of Venezuela’s president — and discusses how Europe could respond to the situation in Iran. Later, in another installment of the Berlaymont Who’s Who series, POLITICO’s Aitor Hernández-Morales takes a closer look at Dan Jørgensen, the EU’s commissioner for energy and housing.

Pedro Sánchez is the prime minister of Spain. It’s no secret the world is going through a time of turbulence. The principles that held it together for decades are under threat; disinformation is spreading freely; and even the foundations of the welfare state — which brought us the longest period of prosperity in human history — are now being questioned by a far-right transnational movement challenging our democratic systems’ ability to deliver collective solutions and social justice. In the face of this attack, Europe stands as a wall of resistance. The EU has been  — and must remain — a shelter for the values that uphold our democracies, our cohesion and our freedom. But let’s be honest, values don’t put a roof over your head. And at any rate, these values are fading fast in the face of something as concrete and urgent as the lack of affordable housing. If we do not act, Europe risks becoming a shelter without homes. The figures are clear: The housing crisis is devastating the standard of living across Europe. Between 2010 and 2025, home prices rose by 60 percent, while rental prices went up by nearly 30 percent. In countries like Estonia or Hungary, prices have tripled. In densely populated or high-tourism cities, families can spend over 70 percent of their income on rent. And individuals with stable jobs in Madrid, Lisbon or Budapest can no longer afford to live where they work or where they grew up. Meanwhile, 93 million Europeans — that’s one in five — are living at risk of poverty or social exclusion. This isn’t just the perception of experts or institutions: Around half of Europeans consider housing to be an “urgent and immediate problem.” Housing, which should be a right, has become a trap that shapes peoples’ present, suffocates their future and endangers Europe’s cohesion, economic dynamism and prosperity. The roots of this problem may differ from country to country, but two facts are undeniable and shared throughout our continent: First, the need for more houses, which we’ve been falling behind on for years. For nearly two decades now, residential construction in the EU has fallen short of demand. After a period of strong growth in the 1990s and early 2000s, the 2008 financial crisis triggered a collapse in housing investment, and the sector never fully recovered. The pandemic only widened this gap, halting permits, delaying materials and worsening labor shortages that further stalled construction. Second, and just as urgent, is that we must ensure both new construction and existing housing stock serve their true purpose: upholding the fundamental right to decent and affordable housing. Because as we continue to fall short of guaranteeing this basic right, homes are increasingly being diverted to fuel speculation or serve secondary uses like tourist rentals. In fact, according to preliminary European Parliament data, there were around 4 million short-term rental listings on digital platforms across the EU in 2025. In my home country, cities like Madrid and València have witnessed the displacement of residents from their historic centers, which are transforming into theme parks for tourists. For nearly two decades now, residential construction in the EU has fallen short of demand. | David Zorrakino/Getty Images At the same time, housing is increasingly being treated as a financial asset instead of a social good. In Ireland, investment funds have acquired nearly half of all newly built homes since 2017, while in Sweden, institutional investors now control 24 percent of all private rental apartments. Just as no one would dare justify doubling the price of a bowl of rice for a starving child, we cannot accept turning the roofs meant to shelter people into a vehicle for speculation — and citizens overwhelmingly share in this view. Seventy-one percent of Europeans believe that the places they live would benefit from more controls on property speculation, like taxing vacant rentals or regulating short-term rentals. This is what the EU stands for: When it’s a choice between profit and people, we choose people. That choice can’t wait any longer. Thankfully, with yesterday’s Affordable Housing Plan, the European Commission is starting to move on housing, taking steps that Spain has long advocated. Brussels now increasingly recognizes the scale of this emergency and acknowledges that specific market conditions may require differentiated national and local responses. This will help consolidate a shared policy understanding regarding housing-stressed areas and strengthen the case for targeted measures — which may include, among others, restrictions on short-term rentals. Crucially, the plan also stresses the need for EU financing to boost housing supply. The time for words is over. We need urgent action. A growing outcry over housing is resonating across Europe, and our citizens need concrete solutions. Any failure to act with ambition and urgency risks turning the housing crisis into a new driver of Euroskepticism. After World War II, Europe was built on two founding promises: securing peace and delivering well-being. Honoring that legacy today means taking decisive action by massively increasing flexible funding to match the scale of the housing crisis, and guaranteeing member countries can swiftly implement the legal tools needed to adopt bold regulatory measures on short-term rentals and address the impact of nonresident buyers on housing access. The true measure of our union isn’t just written in treaties. It must be demonstrated by ensuring every person can live with dignity and have a place to call home. Let us rise to that promise — boldly, together and without delay.

The European Commission unveiled its first-ever Affordable Housing Plan on Tuesday, setting out a roadmap for tackling the bloc-wide housing crisis. The wide-ranging legislative package seeks to free up public cash for new homes, reining in short-term rentals and reducing administrative procedures for construction projects. “Europe must collectively take responsibility for the housing crisis affecting millions of our citizens, and act upon it,” said Housing Commissioner Dan Jørgensen, pointing out that home prices across the bloc have increased by more than 60 percent over the past decade. “Housing is not just a commodity: It is a fundamental right.” And if the EU fails to act, he warned, it risks “leaving a void that extremist political forces will take,” using voter discontent to secure power. In a bid to boost housing stocks, the Commission’s plan includes a  revision of state aid rules to expressly authorize the use of public funds for the construction of affordable housing. These new rules will allow national governments to pour cash into homes for the middle-class families increasingly priced out of the housing market. In collaboration with the European Investment Bank, national banks and other financial institutions, the Commission will also mobilize public and private cash for new social and affordable housing via a pan-European investment platform. The construction of these kinds of homes will be listed as a specific objective within the national partnership plans, which member countries will use to distribute the EU cash allocated to them in the bloc’s next seven-year budget. To further boost supply, the plan also includes a new European Strategy for Housing Construction to simplify and digitize permitting processes, which will be complemented by a housing simplification package in 2027. Brussels additionally proposes major investments to modernize the bloc’s construction sector, as well as measures to establish common standards for building materials. Similarly, it foresees the presentation of a Construction Services Act in late 2026, which will enable construction companies to ensure labor and working standards while offering services across borders. TACKLING SPECULATION AND SHORT-TERM RENTALS In a bid to ensure homes are sold at fair prices, the plan proposes tackling the broader issue of speculation through a careful analysis of the housing market. Over the course of the next year, the Commission will gather data on the scale of this phenomenon, which has led vital homes to be treated like “gold or Bitcoin and other investments made for the sole purpose of making money,” Jørgensen said. As part of its analysis, Brussels will also examine how speculative practices can be curbed, and help national governments design transparency mechanisms and taxation policies to reduce the market’s financialization. The package also takes on the housing shortage in Europe’s most popular cities by giving national, regional and local authorities the legal tools to rein in short-term rentals. Through a legislative act due out next year, Brussels will aim to help authorities identify the areas negatively impacted by tourist flats and lay out “justified and proportionate measures.” “We cannot sit back while local citizens are pushed out of the housing market in the places where they were born or where they want to build a life,” Jørgensen said. He added that authorities would now be able to curb the impact of short-term rentals by setting caps on the number of nights rented per year, limiting their operation to specific seasons or temporarily halting the approval of new licenses. The plan also seeks to address the needs of vulnerable groups like younger Europeans, who often have to delay starting their independent lives because they can’t afford to live outside their family home. To help them, Brussels proposes allocating public cash for new student housing, as well as launching an Erasmus+ scheme to offer affordable housing solutions for students with disadvantaged backgrounds. The Commission also calls for mobilizing funds to build social housing for homeless Europeans, and to promote the so-called housing first model that’s been a success in countries like Finland, which offers unconditional permanent housing to the unhoused. The plan additionally recovers Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s signature New European Bauhaus scheme, tapping it to provide guidance on how to make construction materials and the resulting new homes and neighborhoods more sustainable and efficient.

From Lisbon to Tallinn, Europeans are overwhelmed by soaring home prices. This week, Brussels intends to do something about it. “This is a real crisis,” said European Commissioner for Housing Dan Jørgensen in an interview with POLITICO, ahead of the approval of the bloc’s first-ever Affordable Housing Plan. “And it’s not just enough to talk about it.” To that end, the package will seek to free up public cash for the construction of new homes, track speculation in the housing market, and give regional and local governments tools to rein in the short-term rentals contributing to the housing shortage. “The plan will be a mix of concrete actions at the EU level and recommendations that member states can apply,” Jørgensen said, adding that the European Commission wants to give national, regional and local governments ways to make real changes on the ground — while not overstepping its role in an area over which it has no official competence. “This is a real problem affecting millions of people, and the inaction is playing right into the playbook of right-wing populists,” Jørgensen noted, citing the ultranationalist parties that have stoked discontent over sky-high home prices to score major victories in countries like the Netherlands and Portugal. “Normally the EU has not played a big role here,” he added. “That needs to change.” CASH, TOOLS AND TRANSPARENCY The most concrete action set to be announced this week is a revision of state aid rules to make it easier for national governments to build affordable housing. Member countries have long complained they can only use public cash to provide homes for low-income families. Reflecting the fact that even middle-class earners are now struggling to pay for shelter, the new regulations will allow funds to be used for all groups priced out of the housing market. The package will also give national, regional and local authorities tools to target the tourist flats exacerbating the housing shortage in cities like Barcelona, Florence and Prague. “I’m not on the side of the people who call for banning short-term rentals,” Jørgensen clarified, adding that such platforms have offered travelers the ability to experience Europe differently, and provided some families with a needed source of income. But the model has grown at a rate “no one could have imagined, with short-term rentals accounting for 20 percent of homes in some very stressed areas,” he noted. It has turned into a “money machine instead of what it was intended to.” The commissioner stressed that national, regional and local leaders would ultimately be the ones deciding whether to use the tools to rein in short-term rentals. “We’re not going to force people to do anything,” he said. “If you think the status quo is fine, you can keep things as they are.” In another first, a more abstract section of the package will also aim to address speculation in the housing market. “This is a real crisis,” said European Commissioner for Housing Dan Jørgensen in an interview with POLITICO. | Lilli Förter/Getty Images While insisting he’s “not against people making money,” Jørgensen said Europe’s housing stock was being treated like “gold or Bitcoin and other investments made for the sole purpose of making money” — an approach that ignores the vital role of shelter for society at large. “Having a roof over your head, a decent house … is a human right,” he argued. As an initial step, this week’s package will propose the EU track speculation and determine the scope of the problem. However, Jørgensen acknowledged that using the resulting data for concrete action to tackle the market’s financialization might prove difficult. “While no one is really arguing this problem doesn’t exist, there’s a political conflict over whether it’s a good or a bad thing.” But regulation is essential for the proper functioning of the internal market, he added. THE COMPETENCE QUESTION The Commission’s housing package will also include a new construction strategy to cut red tape and create common standards, so that building materials manufactured at competitive prices in one member country can be easily used for housing projects in another. Additionally, there will be a bid to address the needs of the over a million homeless Europeans, many of whom aren’t citizens of the countries in which they are sleeping rough. “We want to look at what rights they have and how these are respected,” Jørgensen said. “We’re talking about humans with needs, people who deserve our help and compassion.” The commissioner explained the complexity of the housing crisis had required a “holistic” approach that led him to work in tandem with Executive Vice Presidents Teresa Ribera and Roxana Mînzatu, as well as internal market boss Stéphane Séjourné and tech chief Henna Virkkunen, among others. He also stressed the package didn’t constitute a power grab on the Commission’s part, and that national, regional and local governments are still best positioned to address many aspects of the crisis. “But,” he said, “there are areas where we haven’t done anything in which we can do something.” While much of the plan will consist of recommendations member countries won’t be required to implement, Jørgensen warned against ignoring them. The Commission is providing solutions, he said, and “policymakers need to answer to their populations if they don’t do something that’s pretty obvious they could do.” “Normal citizens will use every opportunity to make their demands known, be it in local, national or European elections,” Jørgensen explained. “I’m respectfully telling decision-makers all over Europe that either they take this problem seriously, or they accept that they’ll have to hand over power to the populists.”

LONDON — The British government hit back Wednesday after Donald Trump launched his latest broadside at London Mayor Sadiq Khan. The U.S. president told POLITICO in an interview Monday that Khan was “a horrible mayor” who had made the British capital city a  “different place” to what it once was. Trump added of Khan: “He’s an incompetent mayor, but he’s a horrible, vicious, disgusting mayor. I think he’s done a terrible job. London’s a different place. I love London. I love London. And I hate to see it happen.” Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy, a member of the U.K. cabinet, pushed backed at those remarks Wednesday, and heaped praise on her fellow Labour politician. “I strongly disagree with those comments,” she told Sky News. “I think Sadiq is doing a really good job and has been at the forefront of providing affordable housing [and] improvements to transport.” Nandy said Khan, London’s first Muslim mayor, had offered a model for the U.K. government to follow nationally. “He’s been one of the people who has set up multi-agency approaches to help young people with knife crime, gang violence that we’re learning from in government,” she said. “So I strongly disagree.” Asked explicitly if Trump’s comments were wrong, Nandy replied: “Yes he is.” In his wide-ranging interview with POLITICO, the U.S. president also claimed Khan — who has won three consecutive terms as mayor of London and has no power to determine national migration policy — had been elected “because so many people have come in. They vote for him now.” Pushed on why Prime Minister Keir Starmer hadn’t explicitly defended Khan from Trump’s attack, Nandy said she knows “the prime minister would disagree with those comments.” She added: “I’m sure that if you asked the prime minister if he was sitting in this studio today, he would say what I’ve said, which is that Sadiq is doing an incredibly good job for London. We’re proud of our mayors.” Khan told POLITICO Tuesday the U.S. president was “obsessed” with him and claimed Americans were “flocking” to live in London, because its liberal values are the “antithesis” of Trump’s. It’s not the first beef between the two politicians.  Trump once called Khan a “stone cold loser” and “very dumb” — after Khan compared Trump to “the fascists of the 20th century.” In 2018, Khan allowed anti-Trump activists to fly a blimp over parliament showing Trump as a crying baby in a diaper during his first state visit.

After two years plagued by infighting and political paralysis, the Dutch tried to turn a page in Wednesday’s seismic election. But the country remains sharply divided: The parties finishing first and second, centrist liberal D66 and the far-right Party for Freedom (PVV), are sworn enemies.  During his campaign, D66 leader Rob Jetten cast himself as a foil to PVV firebrand Geert Wilders. And Wilders has said he “basically disagrees with everything [Jetten] says.” Dutch convention has it that the largest party gets first shot at forming a coalition and its leader is favored to become prime minister. That looks like Jetten right now, especially as no one mainstream wants to team up with Wilders. But if talks fail, others can try — meaning the coming weeks remain unpredictable. Once the Heineken wears off, parties will have to decide who they’re willing to work in coalition with, to unravel the country’s complex issues of housing and nitrogen-pollution crises mixed with simmering anti-immigrant sentiment. But that’s for another day. For now, here are election night’s biggest winners and losers. WINNERS Rob Jetten Meet your potential next Dutch prime minister. “We did it!” a victorious Jetten, the 38-year-old D66 leader, told a boisterous crowd in Leiden chanting the party’s campaign slogan: “It is possible.”  The party picked the line to underscore its optimistic campaign promises on housing and education, but the mantra applied also to its result: With a preliminary forecast predicting 26 seats, D66 is on track to achieve its best result ever and become the Netherlands’ largest party after a stunning late surge.  To illustrate its reversal of fortunes: In the 2023 election, D66 won just nine seats, 17 fewer than on Wednesday.  Addressing journalists on election night, Jetten said the results were nothing short of historic, “because we’ve shown not only to the Netherlands but also to the world that it’s possible to beat populist and extreme-right movements.” Fiscally conservative liberals At the start of election night, a visitor attending the election watch party of the center-right liberals of the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) joked that they’d gone ahead and “sent out the funeral bouquets.”  The party had been shedding support in the polls, with the gloomiest projections predicting that it could lose 10 seats compared with its 2023 results, which were already down from 2021.  That didn’t happen: According to a preliminary forecast, the party would lose just two seats, finish third in the race and actually emerge from the election as the least-damaged party from the outgoing, right-leaning government. A triumph indeed. “Decent” politics After two years of constant backbiting and a political circus traversing from one scandal to the next, a core of Dutch voters returned to a politics of familiar ideas and the promise of stability.  The main proponent of this, Christian Democrat boss Henri Bontenbal, enthusiastically summarized it in The Hague on Wednesday night: “The Netherlands is gasping for new politics. Respectful and on-topic,” after campaigning with the slogan, “a decent country.” Speaking to POLITICO, Bontenbal admitted that the election came at the right time for his party, as it bounced back from five seats in 2023 to 18 this week on that platform, according to the preliminary forecast. “I really think people are tired of all the old political games that got us here,” he exhaled.  Bontenbal’s CDA wasn’t the only party scoring big with a positive campaign tone — Jetten’s efforts also paid off in spades — which broke through grumpiness characterizing the Dutch political scene after the Wilders-dominated government fell in June. LOSERS Frans Timmermans  Frans Timmermans left his top job at the European Commission in the summer of 2023 to become the face of the Dutch left and to lead a joint green-socialist ticket to victory.  On Wednesday, he failed for the second time.  Timmermans was unable to cash in on a year of chaos under a right-wing government. His party still loved him, as supporters made clear even during his concession speech — but Timmermans realized the Netherlands does not.  The GreenLeft-Labor ticket lost seats compared to the 2023 election, and fell short of poll predictions after a campaign in which it had seemed to emerge as the lead progressive antagonist to the far-right PVV.  But the spell broke on Wednesday, and the green-socialist audience in Rotterdam had to face up to the reality that D66’s Jetten is now the Dutch progressive darling.  Timmermans, after the devastating exit poll, wasted no time in quitting as the alliance leader.  The left Can anything propel left-wing parties to victory — or, frankly, even to gain seats — in the Dutch political landscape?  It’s a tough question for Dutch left-wingers to wrestle with Thursday morning, because the top left-leaning parties — the GreenLeft-Labor alliance and the Socialist Party (SP) — lost ground, according to projections.  The biggest opposition party couldn’t convince voters to back them, and even lost seats, despite being faced with the hardest-right government in Dutch history and the political chaos it ushered in.  The SP fared even worse than Timmermans’ joint ticket; its seat count almost halved, from five to three.   GreenLeft-Labor is already an alliance of two left-wing parties, and both have decided to merge into one single party next year — but they face a rocky road ahead, though could make up part of a Jetten-led coalition. JURY’S OUT Geert Wilders  We’ll never know how Geert Wilders or his supporters reacted to the first exit polls, since, unlike its competitors, the PVV didn’t hold an election watch party. When he did eventually face the press, fiery Wilders was the picture of humility, describing the dramatic loss of 11 seats — more than any other party — as a “heavy setback.” But, careful now, don’t declare him politically finished just yet. After triggering the collapse of the previous government, Wilders risked being ditched by his voters in even larger numbers. A sweeping victory by his left-wing nemesis Timmermans would have added to the humiliation. Neither scenario played out. Instead it was Timmermans who stepped down, while Wilders remains near the top of the political leaderboard.  And although his chances of joining even a right-wing coalition are slim — he’s burned too many bridges for that — he seems primed to return to his role of Dutch politics’ longest-serving outsider, firing shots and tossing bombs at the establishment from the benches of parliament.  “Buckle up, we’re only getting started,” he warned reporters.

LEIDEN, the Netherlands — Waking up bleary eyed this Thursday morning and wondering who won the Dutch election? Well, it’s a stunner.  Here’s our brief explainer on the progressive liberal party that surged in recent weeks to match Geert Wilders’ far-right Party for Freedom (PVV) on the back of a charismatic young leader.  START FROM THE BEGINNING, PLEASE, WHO WON THE DUTCH ELECTION? The liberal-progressive D66 party — short for Democrats 66; founded in 1966, natch — is on track to win 26 seats in the Netherlands’ 150-strong parliament, according to a preliminary forecast. That puts them equal with the hotly tipped Wilders and his PVV, which just two years ago scored a huge election win, and ahead of other mainstream conservative, socialist and liberal parties. OK, D66 THEN, WHAT DO THEY STAND FOR? D66 is a pro-European party that tends to draw in urbanite, high-income voters.  While the party’s pitch in its early days was to have prime ministers and mayors directly elected, in 2025 it focused its campaign on solutions to the Netherlands’ housing crisis, notably with a plan to build new cities. It also picked a hopeful slogan: “It is possible,” evoking former U.S. President Barack Obama’s “Yes We Can” optimism. The party campaigned on pledges to focus on “affordable, green energy from our own soil” to keep energy prices down, while securing the “healthiest generation ever” by prioritizing the prevention of illness. It also wants greener residential areas and an emphasis on better education. D66 beefed up its stance on migration, advocating for a system that would have people lodge asylum applications outside Europe, with leader Rob Jetten warily noting the collapse of two successive Dutch governments over asylum policy. The party also pushed to reclaim the red-white-and-blue tricolor flag as something for mainstream Dutch voters to be proud of after angry farmers turned it upside down in protests and Wilders clutched it for populist-nationalist reasons.  At D66’s election night party in Leiden, their leader told reporters the flags are a way to wave goodbye to recent years “where it sometimes seemed like our country can’t be proud anymore. We’re an amazing country and we can make it even better,” he said. SO WHO IS THE LEADER AND WHAT’S HIS DEAL? Once dubbed “Robot Jetten” because of the clunky manner he answered questions, Jetten is now in pole position to become the future prime minister of the Netherlands. Despite the unfavorable early nickname, the 38-year-old — who is openly gay — has since become a charming and media-savvy poster-boy for D66’s positive and progressive-liberal platform. “I’ve become a lot grayer and a lot more experienced,” Jetten joked on election night.  He was in line to head the party back in 2018, but stepped aside in favor of veteran diplomat Sigrid Kaag; a move that won him plaudits among party members.  Jetten took the baton from Kaag in 2023 after her hopes of becoming the Netherlands’ first female prime minister were dashed in the previous election. IS JETTEN REALLY GOING TO BE THE NEXT DUTCH PRIME MINISTER? If the final results confirm the election night projections, he’s certainly in prime position.  But the real work starts next.  Jetten will have to form a coalition and, to get the numbers for a majority, may need to carry out the unenviable task of convincing the center-right People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) and left-wing GreenLeft-Labor to team up after bitterly campaigning against one another.  The challenge isn’t lost on Jetten. With around 26 seats, D66 is “a small large party, when compared with Dutch history,” he said on election night. “So we’ll have to cooperate with many parties.” Jetten is also well aware of the challenge that has doomed recent Dutch governments. Migration was once more in the spotlight in the run-up to the election “and it is my ambition that in four years’ time, this will no longer need to be an issue,” Jetten told reporters on election night. BACK TO THE PARTY, HAVE THEY BEEN IN GOVERNMENT BEFORE? Many times, including most recently in the third and fourth governments helmed by longtime liberal leader Mark Rutte. Jetten himself was a climate and energy minister in Rutte’s fourth and final government, in which D66 was the second-largest party.  Before that, D66 has joined coalitions on and off since the early 1970s. HAVE I HEARD OF ANY OF THE PARTY BIGWIGS? You likely have: Diplomat and former Foreign Affairs and Finance Minister Sigrid Kaag led D66 from 2020 until 2023, before returning to the United Nations as the organization’s senior humanitarian and reconstruction coordinator for Gaza.  The EU’s Special Representative for Human Rights Kajsa Ollongren previously filled roles as defense and internal affairs minister for the party.  And then there are the party’s former European lawmakers: Both Marietje Schaake and Sophie in ‘t Veld — who left D66 in 2023 — are well-known names in the Brussels bubble. WHAT’S THEIR POSITION IN BRUSSELS? D66, which is part of the Renew Europe group in the European Parliament, takes a decidedly more pro-EU stance than we’re used to hearing in the Netherlands, from supporting the implementation of a European migration pact to advocating for the creation of European armed forces.  But despite its pro-European stance, D66 has never filled a major EU post — like, for example, a Dutch commissioner — with most party heavyweights focused on domestic politics instead.  Max Griera contributed to this report.

Rob Jetten’s liberal D66 party and far-right firebrand Geert Wilders’ Freedom Party are neck and neck in the Dutch election, according to the first exit poll released Wednesday night.  D66 is on track to get 27 seats, while Wilders’ PVV is closely behind, poised to snag 25 seats, the key exit survey by Ipsos I&O, carried out for broadcasters NOS and RTL, suggests.  The center-right liberals of the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) are projected to come third with 23 seats; while the center-left GreenLeft-Labor (GL-PvdA) is set to win 20 seats and the center-right Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) 19, the exit poll signals. Exit poll projections are historically a good indicator of Dutch election final results. This story is being updated.