Netherlands edges towards banning burqa

Dutch political parties announce a coalition agreement that calls for banning the burqa among other agreements.

AMSTERDAM: Two centre-right parties have agreed to ban the burqa in the Netherlands as a price for parliamentary support from the anti-Islam Freedom party for their minority government.

Liberals leader Mark Rutte, Christian Democrat leader Maxime Verhagen and Freedom Party leader Geert Wilders announced in a news conference the details of the pact.

In a nod to Wilders, the parties agreed to propose banning the burqa in the Netherlands and tightening immigration rules. Wilders said the measures would cut non-Western immigration by half.

The pact still needs approval by a Christian Democrat (CDA) congress on Saturday after the party failed to resolve divisions on whether to rely on support from the Freedom Party during 15 hours of talks on Wednesday.

If the coalition deal is rejected by the CDA, it could prolong a policy deadlock on how to cut the budget deficit from 5.8 percent of gross domestic product (GDP).

Prominent members of the CDA have spoken out against working with Wilders, who is on trial for inciting hatred against Muslims, but some now expect the CDA congress to approve the deal even though the outcome is far from certain.

"I am filled with enormous fear that the congress will vote in favour," former Dutch prime minister Dries van Agt told Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant.

Former CDA health minister Ab Klink, who withdrew from the talks because of concerns over the Freedom Party's stance on immigration, urged CDA members to vote against the deal.

While he said in the Dutch media that the agreement was "not good for the Christian Democrats and also not for the country", he too thought the party would support it.

CDA leader Maxime Verhagen, whose political future rests on the approval of the government deal he helped broker, told reporters he was confident an "overwhelming majority" would approve the deal.