Netherlands: FvD Lawmaker Leads Initiative To Block WHO “Pandemic Treaty”
Van Houwelingen called on other conservative, populist, anti-globalist parties across Europe to follow the example of FvD and work to block the treaty change.
Robert Semonsen
— June 27, 2023
MP Pepijn van Houwelingen’s parliamentary request, which was backed by thirty lawmakers from a collection of right-wing parties, including his own Forum for Democracy (FvD), Party for Freedom (PVV), Farmer Citizen Movement (BBB), JA21, Reformed Political Party (SGP), and Belang Netherlands (BVNL), has blocked the cabinet from approving the new “pandemic treaty,” the Dutch news outlet NieuwRechts reports.
As The Telegraph writes:
Among 300 proposed amendments to the IHRs are changes to make the WHO’s advice “binding” and introduce a new requirement for countries to recognize it as the global authority on public health measures.
The plan would require member countries to “recognize WHO as the guidance and coordinating authority of international public health response … and undertake to follow WHO’s recommendations in their international public health response.”
Instead of adopting the treaty outright, the Cabinet of the Netherlands, the country’s main executive body, which happens to be controlled by liberal-globalist parties, must now submit a bill to the House of Representatives, where lawmakers will then debate the bill before it’s put to a vote.
In comments given exclusively to The European Conservative, FvD MP Pepijn van Houwelingen explained the WHO treaty, why his party opposes it, and why other conservative, anti-globalist parties ought to oppose it as well:
Our party, Forum for Democracy, is very critical of institutions that threaten our democracy and national sovereignty such as the European Union and of course the WHO. In addition to announcing that they are planning to introduce a kind of worldwide health certificate in the wake of the pandemic, the WHO has just proposed to change its so-called International Health Regulations (IHR).
These changes will also give more power to the WHO, which has changed the timetable for future IHR changes. The proposed treaty change will give member states far less time to debate future IHR changes. Of course, this undermines our democratic process.
Forum for Democracy last week—together with other so-called populist parties—invoked a parliamentary procedure that will force our government to propose and debate this treaty change, which will take effect in May 2024 unless member states object before the end of this year.
Van Houwelingen then called on other conservative, populist, anti-globalist parties across Europe to follow the example of FvD and work to block the treaty change. He added that if they fail to do so, he continued, it will likely go into effect automatically next spring.
Several British Conservative MPs have spoken out against the WHO treaty as well. They say the proposed changes to the International Health Regulations (IHR) indicate a “clear ambition… for the WHO to transition from an advisory organization to a controlling international authority.”
In a letter, the six Conservative MPs, led by Esther McVey, who served as a former cabinet minister, have urged the UK’s Foreign Office to block powers that “appear to intrude materially into the UK’s ability to make its own rules and control its own budgets.”
Andrew Mitchell, a Foreign Office Minister, responded to the concerns of the Conservative lawmakers, saying that he would block any law that prevents the UK from determining its own health policy.
Croatian MEP Mislav Kolakušić last month also expressed deep skepticism about the WHO treaty, even going so far as to say the advisory organization should be called a “terrorist organization because of the damage it has caused and the lies it has spread.” He has urged countries not to sign the treaty.
