The Dutch far-right Freedom Party (PVV), a key ally of the centre-right coalition government, on Wednesday (8 February) opened up a website to collect complaints about people from Central and Eastern Europe residing in The Netherlands.
“Did you lose your job to a Pole, a Bulgarian, a Romanian, or any other Central or Eastern European? We would like to hear about it,” it says on the website Hotline Central and Eastern Europeans.
The gradual arrival of cheaper labour from eastern Europe to more protect Western labour markets after EU enlargement in 2004 prompted high-profile scaremongering campaigns in several countries. This was epitomised by the
so-called ‘Polish plumber’, perceived as taking jobs from native Western Europeans.
The PVV estimates that some 200,000 to 350,000 people from the region currently reside in the Netherlands.
The “massive arrival of Poles in particular”, it says, “is the cause of many problems, such as nuisance, pollution, [and] a squeeze on the labour market.”
The party, headed by Geert Wilders, hopes to provide an outlet for complaints that otherwise remain unattended, it says. It will then present the results to the country’s social affairs minister.
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