VVD party leader Dilan Yesilgöz has said the Netherlands should raise its defence spending to 3.5% of GDP “and maybe higher than that”.

Yesilgöz announced the policy at a meeting of party members at the national war museum in Overloon, Noord-Brabant, from behind a podium bearing the party logo and the slogan: “A strong Netherlands. For our security.”

The VVD has taken a much more hawkish line on defence than the other parties in the right-wing coalition. It was the only member of the quartet to oppose a motion in parliament last week calling for the Dutch government not to support extra borrowing to fund the European Union’s €800 billion rearmament plan.

VVD defence minister Ruben Brekelmans has criticised US president Donald Trump for being “not well informed” about the war in Ukraine, while the party voted with the opposition alliance GroenLinks-PvdA for a recent €3.5 billion aid package after its coalition partners PVV and BBB declined to support the plan.

Yesilgöz also travelled to Kyiv last week for a personal meeting with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, while the other coalition partners were holding crisis talks with prime minister Dick Schoof over the rearmament plan.

I met with Dilan Yeşilgöz-Zegerius, leader of the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy and a member of the House of Representatives of the Netherlands.

We discussed steps toward achieving a just and lasting peace. Our European partners, all those who have stood with us since… pic.twitter.com/4MwfAQidpC

— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) March 13, 2025

“In order to stand up for our security and stand up to the Russian threat and offer strong support to Ukraine, we need to increase our spending on defence over time to at least 3.5% of GDP, and maybe higher than that,” Yesilgöz told party members in Overloon.

Wilders: cut VVD hobbies

PVV leader Geert Wilders said in a post on X, better known as Twitter, that he was prepared to consider raising defence spending, but the money would have to be found by cutting funding for “the climate and other VVD hobbies”.

Wiilders said any increase in spending on defence would have to be matched by measures to cut rents, energy bills and the cost of groceries.

In her speech, Yesilgöz also called for the cabinet to put pressure on Nato member states who are not meeting the alliance’s baseline for defence spending of 2% of economic output, such as Luxembourg, Italy and Spain.

The Netherlands raised spending to meet the 2% target last year after years of lagging behind. Poland spends the largest share of GDP among Nato countries, at 4.1%, followed by Estonia and the United States on 3.4%.

Yesilgöz said European countries had become too dependent since the end of the Cold War on the United States for security and Russia and China for resources, arguing a “shift” was needed in foreign policy.

“Geopolitical thinking seemed unnecessary because we believed in a world that was either classically liberal or would become so,” she said.

“This was naive. Freedom, security, and prosperity are not natural phenomena, nor are they guaranteed.”