Dutch Party for Freedom (PVV) leader Geert Wilders has argued that Western Europe should prioritise the threat of rapid demographic change and mass immigration over climate change, claiming the continent is undergoing a “silent conquest” that risks erasing its cultural identity.
In an article published by Breitbart on August 14, the veteran anti-Islam politician and second deputy speaker of the Tweede Kamer, the lower house of the Dutch parliament, wrote that travellers across Western Europe — from Norway to Ireland, Austria to Italy, Germany to France — would notice a sharp rise in the visible presence of Islamic dress, including djellabas, headscarves and niqabs.
“The media talk about heatwaves, but none of them dares to mention the demographic wave,” Wilders stated.
“Its effects on our economy (drained), our way of life (diminished), and our well-being (squandered) are profound. And while the heat will pass, the change in population will not.”
He claimed Islamic radicals are increasingly assertive, with rising intimidation of women, anti-Semitism against Jews, attacks on homosexuals and the need for police protection for critics of Islam.
In the Netherlands, he said, Islam is already the largest religion among people under 25 and could become the country’s largest overall by mid-century. Statistics Netherlands (CBS) survey data has shown Islam as the largest single denomination among the youngest respondents, though most under-25s report no religious affiliation at all.
Wilders linked changing demographics to shifts in Dutch foreign policy, asserting that the government, once a strong ally of Israel, now leads calls for sanctions against the Jewish State. The Dutch Government approved a draft decision on May 22, 2026 banning imports from Israeli settlements and sent it to the Council of State for urgent advice.
He attributed this partly to electoral pressures arising from population changes and accused left and centre-right politicians of internalising claims of an Israeli “genocide” in Gaza. Wilders has sat in opposition since the October 2025 election, at which the PVV took 26 seats, down 11, behind the D66 of Prime Minister Rob Jetten.
Citing what he called official Dutch statistics, he claimed men of certain non-Western origins are disproportionately involved in sexual crimes compared with indigenous Dutch men: Syrian origin 4.4 times higher, Iranian 6.6 times, Eritrean 7.5 times, Iraqi 8.4 times, Afghan 10.9 times and Somali 20.3 times.
The figures are drawn from Migratiemagneet Nederland, a 2024 book by demographer Jan van de Beek that reworks CBS data. The agency stopped breaking sexual-offence figures down by migration background, publishing them by nationality alone, and its chief economist has disputed the author’s approach.
He accused the political establishment, media and feminists of ignoring this “elephant in the room” while focusing on young men in general.
Wilders criticised European leaders for policies that, in his view, accelerate the trend.
He pointed to Angela Merkel’s decision in 2015 to admit large numbers of migrants, and to the European Order of Merit conferred on her by the European Parliament on May 19, 2026.
He also cited Spain’s Pedro Sánchez granting a migration amnesty. The regularisation, approved by royal decree on April 14, 2026, closed on June 30 with 1,174,978 applications, more than double the forecast of the Spanish Government, according to the Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration. The decree is under challenge at the Supreme Court by the Partido Popular (PP) and Vox.
Wilders further pointed to the European Commission’s rejection of a petition calling for an end to non-European immigration, while treating climate protests more leniently. The Save Europe Act, organised by Eva Vlaardingerbroek and Martin Sellner, had gathered about 590,000 signatures on a private platform when the Commission declined on July 22, 2026 to register it as a European Citizens’ Initiative, ruling it would discriminate on grounds of race and ethnic origin. Registration would have allowed them to start collecting the one million signatures that oblige the EU institutions to respond. They have said they will go to court.
Referring to the US National Security Strategy published in December 2025, which he said acknowledged the “real and stark prospect of civilisational erasure” in Europe due to uncontrolled immigration, Wilders quoted the document’s desire for Europe to “remain European” and its warning that the continent could become “unrecognisable in 20 years or less” should present trends continue.
He attributed similar concerns to US Vice President JD Vance, who told the Munich Security Conference in February 2025 that nothing was more urgent than mass migration.
“We were told that diversity is strength. We were told a lie,” he wrote. “Now, whenever it is a bit warmer than usual, we are told that climate change is the biggest threat to our civilisation. Again, we are told a lie.”
He called for closing borders, detaining and rapidly returning illegal migrants, and beginning the “forced remigration” of criminals, arguing that Europe had halted Islamic expansion at Poitiers in 732, Granada in 1492, Lepanto in 1571 and Vienna in 1683.
Wilders concluded that the real threat is “the enemy they dare not name”, describing Islam as “a totalitarian ideology of hatred, violence, intolerance and anti-Semitism”.
“Close the borders. Start deporting illegals. Begin the forced remigration of criminals,” he wrote.
The United Kingdom is on the cusp of a profound demographic turning point, with deaths projected to exceed births every year from mid-2026 onwards. https://t.co/DmIXM3JCb7
— Brussels Signal (@brusselssignal) April 30, 2026
