Do we like them?

Do we like Dilan Yeşilgöz?

Our score: 5 out of 10. Nothing found against LGBTQ+ people, but a hard line on migration and too little checked reporting to score her higher.

Dilan Yeşilgöz is a Turkey-born Dutch politician who now sits at the top table of the Dutch government. She took over as Minister of Defence and Deputy Prime Minister when the new cabinet took office in February 2026.

Before that she led the conservative VVD party into the 2025 election. As VVD leader she called for Dutch defence spending of at least 3.5 percent of GDP, which is the line she now has to turn into a budget as minister.

The migration fight is the main thing people argue about with her. The VVD was in the coalition that fell apart in 2023 over asylum policy, and she has been a leading voice on how tough the rules should be, even though she came to the Netherlands as a child from Turkey. Where you land depends on whether you read that as pragmatic politics or as pulling up the ladder.

The honest gap here is that I couldn't open the full articles on her asylum record, her time as justice minister, or her first months at Defence, because the page fetches failed. There's no sourced court case, scandal or allegation in what I could check, and I'd rather say that than pad it out.