Can the Netherlands’ old masters brush off populist attacks?

A fact that is often forgotten in this discussion: Universities do (and should) hire their staff according to talent and merit. In some departments at Dutch universities, particularly within business and economics, the percentage of international faculty is higher than that of Dutch faculty, and with good reason: the talent pool in a country of this size is rather limited. In order to make it attractive for international talent to join a system which has strictly regulated and limited financial rewards, you can't ask international academics, who often only have temporary contracts, to teach in Dutch - a language that is spoken by a mere 25 million people worldwide, and hardly at all outside of the Netherlands and Flanders. We can, of course, go back to offering our educational programmes in Dutch, but we would certainly lose the vast majority of international researchers and instructors who have contributed to making education in the Netherlands world-class. And wouldn't that be a shame?

"populist right" presumably a dysphemism for "the taxpayer"?

After looking up 'dysphemism' - thanks, a day in which I learn a new word is rare - I would disagree with that interpretation. We're all taxpayers, but a lot of us are not inward-looking xenophobes but open-minded people ready to embrace different cultures and outlooks.