Dutch to ban burqa as part of parliamentary concessions

Two centre-right parties have agreed to the ban, as well as other budget concessions, to win the support from the anti-Islam Freedom Party for their minority government.

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.

The pact, presented on Thursday, envisages 18 billion euros ($24 billion) in budget cuts and aims to bring the deficit within European Union limits by 2013. It tightens the rules on immigration, boosts the number of police officers and makes coffee shops closed clubs.

The size of parliament and the senate will be cut by a third, there will be fewer ministries and local government levels and spending on culture and the public broadcaster will be cut. Freedom Party leader Geert 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.

* Reuters