German extremism also in the Netherlands? ‘Not paying taxes does not mean a coup’ | Domestic

The similarities are obvious. Both the Dutch group of autonomists, as the sovereigns are also called, and their possible German right-wing extremist counterparts have little confidence in official bodies and authorities.

For example, the groups see the government as an ‘evil elite’ and distrust institutions such as the Tax Authorities. That is why some people no longer pay taxes or mortgages. This can lead to increasing debts and even evictions.

So that way of thinking can be quite disruptive. Not only for the sovereigns themselves, but also for democracy. Some sovereigns in the Netherlands believe it is permissible to use violence to resist the system. This emerged from an analysis that the General Intelligence and Security Service (AIVD) published a few weeks ago.

There is an important nuance here: the group in the Netherlands that could behave violently is probably very small. This concerns “several dozen to a hundred people”, the AIVD wrote. That is only a small part of the group of sovereigns that, according to the security service in the Netherlands, consists of about ten thousand people.

That does not mean that we do not have to worry, says Kees van den Bos, professor of Social Psychology at Utrecht University. “In general, we certainly have something to fear from anti-institutional extremism in the Netherlands.” He cites as an example the storming of the Capitol in the United States, in which Trump supporters violently opposed Joe Biden’s election win in 2021.

A similar action took place in the Netherlands after the murder of Pim Fortuyn in 2002. A wave of outrage against then Prime Minister Wim Kok led to riots in the Binnenhof. The violence was not as intense as in America, but the similarities are not far off.

“If people are averse to important institutions such as the government or the tax authorities, then that is very bad,” Van den Bos emphasizes. In this, the Dutch group of sovereigns is similar to the extremists in Germany.

But one difference is that the German Reichsbürger partly consist of (former) soldiers. They therefore have access to weapons, making that group potentially more dangerous than those in the Netherlands. Moreover, the two groups focus on different themes. “Not wanting to pay taxes is something completely different from wanting to overthrow the government,” says Van den Bos. “That goes a few steps further.”

So there is a “certain overlap” between the two radical movements, but we cannot simply equate them. The situation in Germany is more worrying. “Although the security service is always alert to this,” Van den Bos concludes.

Luuk de Boer agrees with this. For the University of Groningen he conducted research into legal cases involving sovereigns in the Netherlands. He does see connections between the Dutch and German groups, but wants to “be careful not to lump them together”.

In the lawsuits, both groups often say the same thing, says De Boer. One of the arguments they often use to make their case is: we are not subject to the law, and therefore we do not have to participate or listen to it.

He sees other parallels in the AIVD report: a small proportion of sovereigns are prepared to commit violence, just like the German extremists. “But the Reichsbürger go further. They have developed further, have their own system with judges and police. It is difficult to say how comparable they are.”

De Boer also points out Selbstverwalter: this is what the group of autonomists who have the same beliefs as the sovereigns here are called in Germany. And they do not see themselves as Reich citizens.

Although there is now a lawsuit against the Reichsbürger because of the terrorist signals, De Boer is not yet concerned about the Netherlands in that regard. “I don’t see those signals in the Netherlands yet,” he says. “But I also mainly focus on justice. The AIVD pays close attention to the threat.”

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