The Dutch Cabinet collapsed Tuesday after far-right PVV leader Geert Wilders abruptly withdrew from the four-party coalition, drawing a storm of reactions from political leaders — some furious, others relieved.

Caroline van der Plas, leader of the BBB, sharply criticized Wilders’s decision — and the way he announced it. “There’s no room to even talk about it. And then he puts it on Twitter,” she said. “You don’t govern a country via Twitter.”

Van der Plas accused Wilders of prioritizing his own agenda over national interests. “He’s not putting the Netherlands first, he’s putting Geert Wilders first. He’s breaking a promise to his voters. He said he would fight for stricter immigration policy, and now none of that is going to happen.”

She said the BBB believed Wilders’s demands could have been met by his own asylum minister, Marjolein Faber. “But he doesn’t care. We can say whatever we want, but he had already made his decision.” She added that the BBB would hold an emergency meeting with its ministers Tuesday morning.

Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) leader Henri Bontenbal called the PVV’s departure “reckless and irresponsible,” accusing Wilders of placing party over country “in internationally uncertain times.”

“For a year we’ve had to witness political amateurism, and the Netherlands came to a standstill,” Bontenbal said. “PVV, VVD, NSC, and BBB were mostly busy with themselves and not with the future of the Netherlands.”

He said the coalition’s collapse had further eroded public trust and defended the CDA’s opposition role as focused on building “a decent Netherlands.” He also condemned Wilders’s use of social media to steer policy: “He went into this exercise only to walk away from it. He has been abandoning the Netherlands for two years.”

Bontenbal called for continuity in governance, saying Prime Minister Dick Schoof should remain in place during the caretaker period. “Let’s maintain some calm, order, and consistency — and not send everyone packing.”

Nicolien van Vroonhoven, who recently replaced Pieter Omtzigt as leader of the NSC party, said Wilders’s walkout was “truly irresponsible.”

She described a brief meeting with coalition partners Tuesday morning, where Wilders insisted the other parties immediately agree to 10 of his asylum proposals. “We said: just give them to your minister and work them out. We will look at them in good faith,” she said. “But we could not agree to commit in advance.”

SGP leader Chris Stoffer expressed disappointment, saying the coalition had failed on every major issue.

“The signal from voters a year and a half ago was clear: stricter asylum policy, housing, and nitrogen issues,” Stoffer said. “On none of these themes have PVV, VVD, NSC, and BBB delivered.”

He called the lost time “irresponsible,” especially with problems like migration, integration, housing costs, and agricultural uncertainty still unresolved. He said the SGP would continue to work constructively despite the Cabinet’s fall.

Frederik Zevenbergen, VVD’s regional minister in Zuid-Holland, responded with frustration on X: “What a mess across the street. Another year of stagnation. No houses, no roads, no investments — no solutions. This country deserves so much better.”

Socialist Party (SP) leader Jimmy Dijk called the government’s collapse a relief. “This is liberation from a political hostage situation,” he said, calling the coalition a “collection of right-wing squabbling parties” that achieved little beyond cuts to health care, education, and elderly care. “Asocial.”

Dijk called for elections, saying the SP would “put the future of our country first — for our youth and a strong economy.”

Volt leader Laurens Dassen also welcomed the collapse, describing it as a chance for renewal. “The ‘bickering Cabinet’ is gone,” he posted on BlueSky. “It’s time for politics that connects instead of divides, that looks outward instead of inward. Politics for the next generation.” He said the PVV-led coalition had made the Netherlands “less green, less fair, and less safe.”