Dutch Parliament opposed to Von der Leyen's €800 billion European defense plan

I don't envy the man at all. Horrible limbo position he's in with no mandate of his own.

I wouldn’t call NSC and BBB ‘Putin’s shills’. PVV definitely; Wilders went on a nice trip to Russia after MH17.

NSC party leader Omtzigt made a declaration saying that, despite being a staunch supporter to Ukraine, ‘NSC remains fundamentally opposed to eurobonds and fundamentally opposed to the increase of budget norms.’.

Schoof can ignore this motion, but he’d ignore the wishes of three of four coalition partners, and most notably those of the largest party in the coalition (PVV).

EDIT: To answer atro_city’s question: NSC is a party formally founded to improve government accountability after a terrible scandal which involved the tax office using a shitty algorithm which marked innocent welfare receivers as frauds. This lead to them being treated terribly, of some the children were taken and some also took their own lives. Omtzigt, their leader, genuinely did a lot to make this issue politically important. A new party, they won an insane amount of seats during last elections, essentially meaning they were kingmakers for a new coalition. They’re pretty much just conservative, though, and they don’t really seem to know what the hell they’re doing.

BBB is a farmers’ party. They’re trying to make it so that large farming corporations can go on depositing way too much nitrogen, but this is an impossible task, so their leader, Caroline van der Plas, has shifted to simping for Israel.

Didn't even know that. Makes the recent news how his secret trip to Israeli-occupied territories got leaked all the more revealing of his true allegiances.

One caused by counting on internal division in the EU, the probability of which increases when we fail to have a unified response right now. Basically just gambling that countries like the Netherlands won't be willing to defend, e.g., a Baltic country. Russia could certainly beat the militaries of small Baltic states one by one, if it is breaking even with Ukraine. No joint response would mean selling out member states and effectively disabling the whole concept of the EU. Joint response would mean war for everyone.

I would prefer a future that minimises the probability of this gamble being made, and nobody gets invaded.

I disagree with automatically assuming Russia will be stupid enough to actually attack the EU, so I agree with your comment.

It may be strategically smart to assume so anyway, but I still find it hard to believe Russia would actually wage war against the EU: with their midget economy they'll lose, unless they're willing to use nuclear weapons, and then they lose as well.