Mark Rutte’s Leadership Under Fire as Coalition Parties Debate Asylum Influx Solutions

As long as he is in power and can continue to pull the strings as party leader of a party that has been the largest in the Netherlands for 13 years.

The ChristenUnie (CU) and the VVD have discussed the problem of limiting the influx of asylum seekers with their members. Both parties are diametrically opposed to each other in the coalition about possible solutions.

The CU party leadership and its members are clear about the feasibility of reaching a joint solution. They only cooperate in plans if they are legally feasible according to party leader Mirjam Bikker. The existing treaties and international agreements will simply have to be respected.

The unanimity between the top of the VVD and its members, in contrast to the CU, was hard to find. Critical members have tightened the thumbscrews of their party leadership and are even willing to pull the plug from the cabinet if a well-functioning solution to limit the influx is not forthcoming. Visibly annoyed, party leader Rutte had to pull out all the stops to keep the aforementioned VVD members in check so as not to have to leave the cabinet now.

Before the summer, Rutte promised his party members to come up with a solution to the above-mentioned influx problem requested by his party. According to him, coalition parties were still busy discussing this behind the scenes.

Mark Rutte has often amazed the Netherlands with his ability to postpone major problems and keep postponing solutions. Even the socially disruptive consequence of that behaviour, the fact that the Netherlands has been completely locked down for quite some time, does not bother the cheerful prime minister.

As long as he is in power and can continue to pull the strings as party leader of a party that has been the largest in the Netherlands for 13 years. Rutte did not hide that last fact when he was forced by his own party members to convince them with a lot of Rutte rhetoric that they still had to give him until the summer recess to fulfill his promise made in November 2022 to his VVD members, to do something about the influx of asylum seekers.

Untangling the Gordian knot of the asylum influx problem requires Rutte to quickly come up with an inimitable Houdini act. Only such a circus act can keep the Rutte IV cabinet alive.

The chance of new elections coming into the picture is increasing by the day!