Geert Wilders won’t be Dutch PM, but he can still harm Europe. Here’s how to stop him | Ties Dams

The far-right leader will cheerlead for Putin and relaunch his culture war with the EU. But his incendiary narrative about it is also his weakness

Despite winning the Dutch elections last year, the far-right leader Geert Wilders has reluctantly given up on the prospect of becoming prime minister after his prospective coalition partners blocked his path. This may seem like a victory against the far right, but think again: as leader of the biggest party in the upcoming coalition, Wilders will be conducting from the wings. And free of day to day prime-ministerial responsibilities, he is likely to ramp up his decades-long culture war against the European Union.

Forming a coalition government in the Netherlands has always been a rocky road, but this time it has taken an unexpected turn. Since Wilders' PVV won a shocking quarter of the popular vote in November he had looked set to become prime minister. The populist Farmer-Citizen Movement and centre-right New Social Contract - as well as the downsized ruling liberal-conservative VVD - could have gone into a government with Wilders as its head.

Ties Dams is an essayist and political theorist at the Clingendael Institute and Leiden University's Europa Institute