AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – Dutch Finance Minister Sigrid Kaag will leave politics after the upcoming elections, to relieve her family of the burden of threats made to her, she said in a newspaper interview published on Thursday.
“My work has been a heavy burden for my husband and my children,” Kaag told Dutch daily Trouw.
“I’m not quitting because my security is an issue for me. But it is for them. I would like it for them if things would quieten down.”
On a Dutch TV program recently Kaag’s two daughters talked about their concerns for their mother because of threats made to her, causing the minister visible emotion when she was confronted with the recording.
In May, Kaag, 61, said the environment for politicians in the Netherlands had become “toxic”, as she and many of her colleagues were continuously threatened and often needed tight security.
Kaag’s decision to leave comes three days after long-serving Prime Minister Mark Rutte unexpectedly announced he would quit politics once a new government is formed.
Rutte handed in the resignation of his fourth coalition government on Friday after failing to reach an agreement on stricter immigration policies.
Foreign Minister Wopke Hoekstra this week also said he would not run in the next elections, expected to be held in mid-November.
A veteran U.N. diplomat, Kaag entered Dutch politics in 2017 when she became foreign minister in Rutte’s third cabinet.
She led the pro-EU, left-leaning D66 party to second place in the 2021 elections, behind Rutte’s conservative VVD.
(Reporting by Bart Meijer; editing by Jason Neely)
