S&P 500 eases slightly from fresh record high after stronger economic growth
Investing.com - The blue-chip AEX index in the Netherlands was lower in mid-morning trading on Tuesday after the Dutch government collapsed due to a spat over immigration proposals.
Far-right leader Geert Wilders said that he would withdraw his party from the ruling coalition government because the alliance did not support plans for halting asylum migration.
In a post on X translated by Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL), Wilders, a populist politician who has recently seen some of his support erode in recent polls, announced that his Party for Freedom (PVV) would be leaving the coalition.
Wilders had previously warned on Sunday that the PVV could take such a step should the coalition choose not to adopt a majority of its asylum proposals and implement them as soon as possible.
Against this backdrop, the AEX in Amsterdam had dropped by 0.5% to 914.19 by 04:36 ET (08:36 GMT).
The PVV’s 10-point proposals included a halt to asylum and a temporary pause to the reunification of families for immigrants who had been granted refugee status.
Since being installed after the PVV secured a major victory in a general election in 2023, the Netherlands’ fragile coalition government has struggled to forge a broad consensus. New elections are now likely to come in the next few months, heaping further political uncertainty onto the outlook for Europe’s fifth-largest economy, Reuters has reported.
Plans to increase defense spending to meet new NATO targets may also be cast into doubt. Leaders from NATO countries are due to decide on these targets at a meeting in the Netherlands later this month.
(Reuters contributed reporting.)