Baudet says that FVD is not present at the parliamentary debate on Russia’s interference | Politics

Forum for Democracy is not present at the parliamentary debate on Russian influences, party leader Thierry Baudet reports via https://twitter.com/thierrybaudet/status/1775132677697380380. In a statement he calls the debate bickering and speculation. He again denies that his party has (financial) ties with the Kremlin.

The House of Representatives agreed to the debate on Thursday. This happened after warnings from the Czech intelligence services about Russian money flows to various European politicians.

The radical right news site Voice of Europe is said to have paid European politicians, including Dutch politicians, last year to spread pro-Russian propaganda. It is still unknown which politicians are involved and which party they belong to. Voice of Europe has regularly interviewed FVD leader Baudet and FVD MEP Marcel de Graaff.

In one of those interviews, from August last year, Baudet said that he believes that the West is provoking Russia and that the country has the right to defend itself. The Russian authorities also use that frame.

PVV leader Geert Wilders has also spoken positively about this in the past Voice of Europe. That was in an interview with the site from 2017. That was long before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but a few years after the annexation of Crimea by President Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

Dutch politicians reacted with concern to these reports and asked the cabinet to find out who it is. Neither the cabinet nor the AIVD intelligence service have released any names. The Czech authorities also say they are not yet providing names.

Baudet denied on Tuesday on X allegations that he or his party received money from the Kremlin in any way. It is therefore of no use for him to come to the debate, he said in his statement.