NL – A parliamentary inquiry into the Netherlands’ pandemic response will not start until later this year at the earliest because MPs want to wait for a key report.
The coalition parties VVD, D66 and CDA, as well as GroenLinks, say the third part of the Dutch Safety Board’s (OVV) review, which is due to be published later this year, will form a crucial part of the evidence.
The inquiry is expected to last three years, running through the elections which must be held by March 2025, but has been beset by disputes over the polarised views of its members.
The right-wing parties PVV, FVD and Wybren van Haga’s group, as well as independent MP Liane den Haan, are ready to begin, but parliamentary chairwoman Vera Bergkamp said the committee needed a broader base.
Bergkamp told members after canvassing views from all parties that the start would be delayed because the committee should represent “a sufficiently broad cross-section of parliament”.
Earlier this year, Van Haga and Pepijn van Houwelingen of the FVD came under pressure to step down from the organising committee over comments made in the media about coronavirus and the government’s response.
Both parties have voiced support for conspiracy theories around the virus, including unfounded suggestions that the vaccine was responsible for excess deaths during the pandemic.
GroenLinks MP Lisa Westerveld has also said she is unhappy with the inquiry’s remit. “It seems to be mainly concerned with the question of whether the Netherlands went too far with its lockdown measures, but shouldn’t we also be asking if we didn’t go far enough?”
Other committee members told RTL that Van Houwelingen’s comments about vaccines risked prejudicing the inquiry, as panel members are supposed to take a neutral stance. “If this were a court, we’d have been recused,” one said.
