Frans Timmermans has launched his campaign for a new centre-left party that would build a “new welfare state” against global uncertainty, but also “dare to be a party of the middle classes”.

Timmermans, currently leader of the alliance of the GroenLinks and Labour (PvdA) parties, offered an alternative to the “damaging politics of austerity” of recent years, pledging to invest in education and healthcare as well as defence spending.

In a speech to party delegates in Utrecht, he also proposed setting up a €25 million future investment fund over the next four-year parliamentary term to improve infrastructure, research and development, and making industry more sustainable.

“We are not choosing extra tanks at the expense of teachers in the classroom or large-scale cuts to healthcare to pay for extra aircraft or military personnel,” Timmermans said. “Good social security is just as important for our resilience, if not more important, than a stronger defence.”

Members of the two parties are widely expected to vote to take the next step towards a formal merger at a joint conference in June, when they will be asked to take a decision in principle.

The vote has been brought forward by a year as a series of crises has rocked the right-wing coalition government, feeding speculation that it could collapse before the end of the year.

Putin and Trump

Timmermans said Europe was under attack from the convergence of the United States and Russia since the election of US president Donald Trump.

“Putin and Trump have launched an attack on our freedom and our way of life,” he  said. “If ever there was a moment to combine our forces, it is now, because we can see our ideals disappearing further from view.”

But he also offered an olive branch to the centre-right parties VVD and CDA, recognising that the left-wing alliance will need to work with either or both in a future coalition.

“We are a party of progress, not bearing witness,” Timmermans said. “That means we are prepared to hold our hand out to parties across the centre, in order to pull the centre towards the left.”

Recent opinion polls show both GL-PvdA and the VVD gaining ground on the far-right PVV, which is the largest party in parliament with 37 seats. Ipsos I&O says Geert Wilders’ party would drop to 30 seats in an election now, with Timmermans’ party on 27 seats and the VVD winning 25.

The latest Verian poll for EenVandaag has the VVD in second place on 28 seats, one more than GL-PvdA and three behind the PVV. The CDA, which has just five MPs at the moment, is up to 18 seats in the Ipsos poll and 15 according to Verian.

Middle classes

Timmermans was mildly critical of the VVD, some of whose members have been wary from the start of the coalition with the PVV. “The centre right has shifted to the right and shaken the hand of the radical right, but the country has gained nothing from it,” he said. “Things have only got worse, nothing has been achieved.”

But he also acknowledged that there are differences in his own PvdA party about the prospect of a merger with GroenLinks. Senior figures such as former leader Ad Melkert have opposed the move, arguing it will tear the party away from its working-class roots.

Timmermans emphasised that he wanted to invest in welfare, but also said the left-wing parties needed to “dare to be a movement of and for the middle classes”, including entrepreneurs.

In the past the PvdA had “not paid enough attention to the majority of businesspeople who want to be good employers and pay decent wages,” he said. “A good existence for everyone is an illusion without a strong economy”.

Timmermans also indicated he was prepared to take a tougher stance on migration, saying it needed to be “better managed” and there was “a limit to the number of people we can reasonably give a home to”.

But he said the emphasis should be on restricting labour migration and ending the exploitation of foreign workers, rather than the current government’s policy of deterring asylum seekers.