Three of the Netherlands biggest political parties are facing financial problems because of declining memberships, the Volkskrant said on Tuesday.

The Christian Democrats (CDA), Labour (PvdA) and the right-wing Liberal VVD are all reaching a ‘critical point’ in terms of membership, the paper said, and some senior officials have raised the issue of funding Declwith the home affairs ministry.

Political parties in the Netherlands get government funding partly on the basis of the size of their membership base. Geert Wilders’ anti-immigration PVV does not get this support because he is the only member.

In total, taxpayers spent €1.9m subsidising political parties last year.

Slump

The CDA remains the biggest Dutch party with some 51,000 members, compared with 143,000 members in 1981. Labour party membership has slumped from 110,000 to 46,000 and the VVD from 93,000 to 28,000.

Political parties are essential to democracy, constitutional law professor Paul Bovend’eert told the paper.

‘Parties select candidates for parliament, the provinces and local government,’ he said. ‘In addition, they write the party manifestos which form the basis of government coalition agreements.’