Premier Paolo Gentiloni said
Tuesday night he was "pleased" with the election result in the
Netherlands which saw Geert Wilder's Freedom Party, frontrunners
in the pre-election polls, defeated by incumbent Premier Mark
Rutte's Liberals.
"The anti-EU populist right has been stopped, and now we must
relaunch the EU," said Gentiloni.
Former premier and ex-leader of the ruling centre-left
Democratic Party Matteo Renzi also said he was "satisfied that
the populist wave was stopped".
However, rightwing populist anti-euro and anti-immigrant
Northern League leader Matteo Salvini hailed the increase in
Wilders' vote.
"Good ideas are growing," he said.
"Wilders came second - I'd like to lose like that".
Rutte's Liberals won the elections with 21.2% of the vote and
33 seats out of 150, banishing the spectre of a win by the
Islamophobic anti-EU populists of Wilders, whose Freedom Party
came second with 13.1% and 20 seats, a a shade ahead of the
Christian Democrats and the Left Liberals, which got 19 seats
each.
The Greens made a big advance while an anti-racist party,
Denk, got into parliament for the first time in Europe.
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