Jetten nears Dutch flag as Wilders slips

Welcome to Rapporteur. This is Eddy Wax in the Dutch city of Leiden, and Nicoletta Ionta in Brussels.

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Need-to-knows:

• Netherlands: Rob Jetten’s D66 projected to win election as far-right Geert Wilders loses ground
• Ireland: Ex-PM Leo Varadkar admits holding back on challenging Viktor Orbán over LGBTQI rights
• Environment: EU ambassadors urge Commission to delay anti-deforestation law for all companies

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From the capital

A sea of Dutch flags. That’s the image burned into my brain from Rob Jetten’s victory party last night in Leiden.

Exit polls suggested Jetten’s liberal-progressive party will emerge with the most seats, and as I write these lines at 1 a.m. the Grolsch is flowing and the Macarena is blaring.

With 90% of votes counted early on Thursday, D66 made sweeping gains and looked set to take the lead in forming the next government. A victory for Jetten would mark a surprising twist in an election long expected to be won by one of the two veterans of Dutch politics, Geert Wilders or Frans Timmermans. They ended up knocking each other out.

An exhausted Wilders, who miscalculated by collapsing his right populist government this summer over migration, now has little chance of making it into government. Left-wing leader Timmermans, after coming a miserable fourth, resigned in ignominy, failing at his second attempt to become prime minister.

Centrist Jetten, a 38-year-old hybrid of Barack Obama and Mark Rutte, acknowledged it was unusual that his party had so vigorously reclaimed the flag – long the far-right’s symbol. “I believe it’s important that progressive parties also show we can be proud of our country,” he told reporters, embracing the label “progressive patriot.”

Capturing the flag was a “very focused strategy,” D66 MEP Gerben-Jan Gerbrandy told me.

Jetten’s campaign was carefully calibrated: he recognised that migration was a problem for the Netherlands but kept out of the vitriolic slugfest between Wilders and Timmermans, instead beaming optimism. “Yes we can!” chanted the party faithful as Jetten promised an end to the “endless hatred” of the Wilders era.

EU flags flying among the Dutch ones hint at a more pragmatic Netherlands in Brussels and a more active one on the international stage, after two years of political paralysis in The Hague. Jetten told me he will support Ukraine “no matter what.”

When forming a coalition, Jetten’s first choice will be to look left. He mentioned Timmermans’ Labour-GreenLeft alliance as a “logical” partner, alongside the centre-right CDA and right-liberal VVD.

But with the VVD ruling out working with the left, it’s just as likely that a small right-wing party called JA21 – which did better than expected – could come to replace the Labour-Greens.

Expect a flood of analysis in the European press on how Jetten has turned the tide against populism by capturing its symbols while rejecting its divisiveness. But without a left-wing coalition partner, Jetten could find himself as the only progressive part of a right-wing coalition.

And remember the bigger picture: Hungary, Slovakia, and now the Czech Republic are increasingly working together. That’s more than enough populism to pose a problem for Brussels.

Interview: Leo Varadkar’s Orbán regrets

Ireland’s former prime minister Leo Varadkar reflected on what he called a missed chance to confront Hungary’s Viktor Orbán over LGBTQI rights when he was in office.

“We had to deal with Brexit, and I needed Hungary onside for that, which meant I said less than maybe I should have on questions of human rights,” Varadkar told Rapporteur in Brussels, where he was meeting Justice Commissioner Michael McGrath to talk about human rights backsliding. “Maybe I can make up for that a bit now.”

Varadkar, who was Ireland’s leader for two stints between 2017 and 2024, is now running a project at Harvard’s Kennedy School aimed at boosting LGBTQI rights across the EU. As Ireland’s first openly gay cabinet minister, he spearheaded a referendum to legalise gay marriage.

His current work zeroes in on Bulgaria, Hungary, and Slovakia, where Robert Fico recently changed the constitution to recognise only two genders. “It’s a pity they’ve gone down that route,” he said.

“If you can’t have a Pride march in Budapest, what’s next?” he asked, referring to Hungary’s ban on the parade this year.

Varadkar also warned that prolonged inaction by Brussels risks eroding confidence in EU law: “If ultimately no action is ever taken on breaches of the treaties, then it makes the European Union ineffectual – and it makes the treaty rights that we all have meaningless.”

Business as usual at JL

The Council’s Justus Lipsius building will not shut down during its decade-long renovation, according to one official familiar with the plan revealed by Euractiv last week.

The works will be carried out in phases to keep operations running as usual, the official said. Documents confirm that the “profound renovation” will preserve full continuity for delegations and presidencies, with temporary space provided in three new meeting rooms at the nearby Council building, LEX – avoiding costly rentals and keeping the overhaul entirely in-house.

EU ambassadors oppose tree law

A majority of EU ambassadors are pushing for the European Commission to delay enforcement of the bloc’s new anti-deforestation laws for everyone, not just small companies, three diplomatic sources told Sofia Sánchez Manzanaro.

The debate comes amid renewed pressure in Brussels to delay and simplify the implementation of the deforestation rules, approved in 2023. Last week, the Commission unveiled plans to simplify reporting requirements by reducing the amount of data companies must upload to its IT system.

But member states remain unconvinced. During a meeting on Wednesday, most ambassadors argued that the rules should not take effect on 30 December 2025 as initially planned, and that any delay should cover all affected operators.

Parliament might sue the Commission

The Parliament’s legislative affairs committee will vote next week on whether to take the Commission to court over its decision to withdraw a proposal on Standard Essential Patents (SEPs) from its 2025 work programme, according to an internal document seen by my colleague Anupriya Datta.

The document shows that Socialist lawmaker René Repasi has proposed that Parliament bring an action for annulment before the Court of Justice of the EU. The Commission withdrew the SEPs proposal in February as part of its 2025 work programme, which was subsequently published in the EU’s Official Journal on 6 October – finalising the decision.

The capitals

WARSAW 🇵🇱

Poland’s long-running judicial saga has entered another chapter. President Karol Nawrocki’s office has asked prosecutors to investigate Waldemar Żurek, the justice minister and prosecutor general, for alleged abuse of power, a crime punishable by three years in prison. Żurek recently allowed court presidents to override the random allocation of cases, seeking to bar judges linked to the previous Law and Justice government’s politicised judicial council. Critics warn the policy risks deepening tensions over judicial independence.

BUCHAREST 🇷🇴

The US is trimming its presence in Romania, mainly from the Mihail Kogălniceanu base, as part of a wider realignment of forces across Europe, Defence Minister Ionuț Moșteanu said. One rotating brigade will be wound down, but around 1,000 troops will stay, roughly the pre-war level. Moșteanu assured Romanians that key strategic sites, including the Deveselu missile-defence system, remain untouched.

BERLIN 🇩🇪

For his first trip to Turkey, Friedrich Merz is betting that quiet diplomacy will serve him better than public rebuke. He arrived in Ankara last night to talk migration, trade, and security with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, sidestepping concerns about political repression that human-rights groups say should define Germany’s stance – a calculated trade-off in a relationship built on necessity.

LISBON 🇵🇹

Portugal has joined a small group of European countries empowering courts to strip criminals of citizenship. On Tuesday, its parliament passed an amendment allowing judges to revoke nationality from anyone sentenced to four or more years in prison. The measure, supported by the centre-right and far-right but opposed by the ruling Socialists, was detached from a broader nationality-law reform to avoid constitutional pitfalls.

MADRID 🇪🇸

Spain’s PSOE is again under scrutiny after former staffers told the Supreme Court that Koldo García, who served as an aide to former minister José Luis Ábalos, handed cash-filled envelopes to the party’s Organisation Secretariat. The party insists these were audited “cash advances” totalling more than €1 million from 2017 to 2024. García and Ábalos face probes for alleged kickbacks and rigged contracts. Pedro Sánchez will appear before the Senate committee on Thursday, pressed by the opposition Partido Popular.

BRATISLAVA 🇸🇰

Robert Fico’s populist government faces renewed scrutiny over Slovakia’s criminal code overhaul, which eased penalties for petty offences and lifted the theft threshold, fuelling public concern over rising street crime. Local officials warn of emboldened offenders and ineffective enforcement, while the justice and interior ministers have hinted at a possible policy reversal under mounting political and social pressure.

COPENHAGEN 🇩🇰

In a landmark decision, a Danish court has outlawed the Bandidos motorcycle gang, long synonymous with organised crime and violent turf wars. The ruling by the Helsingør District Court orders the group’s dissolution and bans its symbols, allowing police to seize club paraphernalia. The verdict, likely to be appealed, marks the first time Denmark has shut down an entire biker organisation – a bold step in a country that has struggled to contain its criminal underworld.

STOCKHOLM 🇸🇪

Ulf Kristersson has come under fire for allowing his daughter’s student group to hold a private event at Harpsund, the prime ministerial residence, in what critics called a lapse in judgement. Opposition figures accused him of blurring public and private lines, with former minister Ardalan Shekarabi labelling the decision “careless” and Left Party leader Nooshi Dadgostar saying it “borders on corruption.” The row has reignited debate over ethical standards in Swedish politics.

HELSINKI 🇫🇮

Finland’s far-right Finns Party has introduced a ban on MPs employing close relatives as parliamentary assistants, following controversy over a minister hiring her son. The new rule, which will apply after the next election, forms part of candidate contracts aimed at tightening ethical standards. Party secretary Harri Vuorenpää said the goal was to create “clear rules of the game,” while parliamentary group chair Jani Mäkelä backed the measure and called for similar limits across parliament.

Also on Euractiv

When trade becomes war by other means, bureaucrats are the wrong generals. In an op-ed for Euractiv, Hans Kribbe, senior fellow for geostrategy at the Brussels Institute of Geopolitics, argues that the EU needs a National Security Council of its own, a single brain to align the bloc’s jumble of regulators and diplomats as America and China weaponise commerce.

Europe, he said, must stop pretending technocracy can substitute for strategy.

Yossi Amrani, political director at Israel’s foreign ministry, has warned that European interference in his country’s politics and threats of sanctions risk undermining relations.

Speaking to Euractiv in Brussels, he urged the EU to treat Israel fairly and said divisions over Gaza and recognition of Palestinian statehood have left Europe sidelined in the recent US-led peace deal.

Agenda

Contributors: Anupriya Datta, Elisa Braun, Thomas Møller Nielsen, Jeremias Lin, Alessia Peretti, Charles Szumski, Aleksandra Krzysztoszek, Natália Silenská, Inés Fernández-Pontes

Editors: Christina Zhao, Sofia Mandilara