A majority in the House of Representatives has approved a seven-day suspension of FvD boss Baudet. FvD MPs Van Meijeren and Jansen will be reprimanded. This is because they did not abide by the house integrity rules.

Most MPs believe they have breached the code of conduct by repeatedly refusing to register their part-time job as director of Amsterdam Media Group BV in the House of Representatives part-time job register.

It is the first time the House has made such a decision. In the roll-call vote, in which every MP present must say “for” or “against”, there were 119 votes in favor and 2 against.

PVV and FvD left the hall early because they fundamentally did not want to vote. “As elected representatives of the people, we should not vote for each other,” said PVV boss Wilders. BBB also finds the sanction too severe. SP and Denk spoke out in favor of voting that every member of parliament wants to be transparent to the voter.

The suspension goes into effect tomorrow for the next seven days. Baudet may not participate in debates, but may vote. Only Wednesday and Thursday are still meeting days in the house, after that the weekend and the autumn holidays begin.

The Code of Conduct came into force on April 1, 2021, following criticism from the Group of States against Corruption.

This working group of European countries found that the Dutch Parliament monitors MEPs’ financial interests and the influence of lobbyists, which could jeopardize MEPs’ reliability and independence.

The code of conduct consists of five rules of conduct. About the prohibition on accepting gifts or favors in exchange for political influence, about dealing with lobbyists, about handling confidential information and about rules of conduct that apply to an MP to prevent “inappropriate behavior”. It refers to the Constitution and other laws, as well as the so-called Rules of Procedure.

Financial benefits

The third rule of conduct, which was declared applicable to the deputies of the FvD, concerns the mandatory registration of additional income and activities, company shares, gifts received, from other paid air travel and other (financial) benefits that may affect the work of the Chamber.

Baudet had to deal with the rules of procedure on September 21 last year. Then Chamber President Bergkamp cut him off because he refused to withdraw certain statements about Finance Minister Kaag.