Let’s imagine: At the beginning of 2022, after the failed Jamaica and traffic light options, the Union parties and the SPD decide to negotiate a new edition of the grand coalition. Anything better than the threatened losses in new elections, so the motto. The parties involved in the last Dutch government are currently following this logic: just seven months after the parliamentary elections, talks between the market-liberal Volkspartij voor Vrijheid en Democratie (VVD), the progressive-liberal Democrats 66 (D66), the Christian Democratisch Appèl (CDA) are starting ) and the Calvinist ChristenUnie (CU).
Mark Rutte (VVD), who will probably remain the prime minister in the future and eleven years in office this week, is confident after an initial meeting that everyone involved wants to find a solution. An empty phrase that also shows how bad the situation is in The Hague. For months one round of negotiations failed, with a six-party alliance (the old government plus Social Democrats and GroenLinks) being rejected as well as a minority cabinet made up of VVD, D66 and CDA. In addition, all of this was flanked by scandals and affairs, which not only show the extent of the political crisis in the Netherlands, but also the badly battered reputation of its protagonists. The whole thing started in January, when the last Cabinet Rutte because of the so-called child benefit affair (the Friday 03/2021) resigned. It was about 26,000 parents who were treated as potential social fraudsters and threatened with ruin because of exorbitant payment obligations.
Above all Rutte protested his regret and full-bodied proclaimed a new, citizen-oriented style. The fact that his party won the elections from March 15 to 17 can be explained by the pandemic, in which changes of government appear risky, with a stable Rutte base among high-income earners and with the national phenomenon of relying on an austerity-fixated party in uncertain times . With Sigrid Kaag (D66), to date Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation, there was definitely an alternative. Under the motto “New Leadership” she wanted to do justice to the desire for a profound political change, unlike Rutte, this was also taken from her. Both have now been hit: the prime minister, who has now been in office for nine months, barely survived a vote of no confidence in April. He had denied that in the first round of the coalition discussions about the critical CDA MP Pieter Omtzigt, who played a decisive role in the child benefit affair. Leaked documents meanwhile showed that Omtzigt should be praised away with a high post. For her part, Sigrid Kaag resigned from her new post as Foreign Minister in September. Parliament expressed its suspicion that the foreign ministry had failed to evacuate Afghanistan.
Everyone has to give in
The fact that the Hague is now relying on restoration as a last resort before new elections that are feared by everyone also means that key figures are revising previous positions. In the case of Sigrid Kaag, this concerns her aversion to the conservative ChristenUnie, the confession expressed in August that a change would require a different cabinet, and, last but not least, her right to political renewal. The ChristenUnie party is saying goodbye to the announcement that it will no longer cooperate with Rutte.
Meanwhile, the Netherlands faces a number of very pressing problems. Above all, a massive housing shortage, against which a protest movement is currently emerging. The figure of 220,000 working poor, announced in September, testifies to the widening social divide. The cocaine mafia now uses its killers on lawyers, journalists and, according to current reports, even on the prime minister. The vigor with which a new edition of the exhausted center-right cabinet will tackle all of this remains to be seen. What is certain is that it will break the record for the longest coalition negotiations in the country at the end of October.
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