THE HAGUE, 06/11/03 - The conservatives (VVD) reiterated once again yesterday that they do not want to meddle with the constitutional freedom of education. But the party would not say how it wants to give substance to its plans to impose restrictions on Muslim schools.

MP Balemans, who spoke on behalf of the VVD in a debate on the education budget yesterday, said his party is not carrying out any crusade against Article 23 of the Constitution (freedom of education), nor against Islamic schools and also not against Christian schools. But he did not succeed in convincing the other parties of this.

The motion that Balemans' fellow-party member Hirsi Ali put forward this week to combat the spread of Muslim schools is in conflict with the freedom of education enshrined in the constitution, said the VVD's Christian democratic (CDA) and center-left (D66) coalition partners. Under the motion, schools would not be allowed to be one-sidedly composed ethnically, and no school would be allowed more than a quarter of '1.9 children' - backward immigrant children for whom schools receive 1.9 times as much subsidy as for 'normal' children.

"You cannot keep Article 23 out of it if you propose such conditions", orthodox Christian (SGP) MP Van der Vlies declared. Balemans disputed this and compared the - in his view - frenetic reaction of the House with that of 10 years ago when VVD party leader Bolkestein got the debate going on the problems of immigration for the first time.

A parliamentary majority however had no sympathy for the VVD position. Balemans received most criticism for the fact that he refused to give a detailed explanation of his party's plans. Pim Fortuyn List (LPF) considered that "weak" and D66 could "find neither rhyme nor reason" in it, while ChristenUnie considered that the VVD is enshrouding the meanwhile best-known article of the constitution in "Much mist. "