Feb 6, 2024 at 11:31 PM Update: 44 minutes ago
NSC leader Pieter Omtzigt says he is still open to further negotiations with other parties, but mutual trust with the party leaders of PVV, VVD and BBB has been damaged.
The fact that Omtzigt announced on Tuesday that NSC will no longer participate in the formation for now does not mean that the party no longer wants to negotiate in the next phase.
“Does this mean that I don’t want to talk about anything anymore? No, of course not,” Omtzigt said on RTL talk show on Tuesday evening Humberto. “NSC is still open to negotiations.”
The only question is who he is still willing to talk to, because the trust with Geert Wilders (PVV), Dilan Yesilgöz (VVD) and Caroline van der Plas (BBB) has taken a serious hit, says Omtzigt.
This had, for example, to do with the fact that the four party leaders were talking confidentially with each other on Monday evening at the Ministry of Justice and Security, but to Omtzigt’s surprise he read that evening The Telegraph that he was making “retreating movements.”
That was leaked by the other party leaders, says Omtzigt. “They blamed me for all kinds of things. I thought we were talking confidentially. Then this doesn’t help.”
He was also annoyed that party leaders acted as if nothing was wrong on Tuesday. Yesilgöz said she still had “good hope”. Omtzigt: “Then I think: be a little honest.”
In short, the atmosphere “wasn’t great every day,” Omtzigt said. According to him, that is not so bad at all. The four parties simply have different views.
The disappointing financial picture turned out to be a breaking point
Omtzigt once again emphasized that the disappointing financial picture was the main reason for terminating the talks at this stage. He had also reported this earlier in the evening in a letter to the NSC members.
The NSC leader was particularly unhappy that he received these figures so late and only after a lot of insistence. It concerned documents that informant Ronald Plasterk obtained between January 20 and 31, but only reached the party leaders on Monday.
“I would have liked to have that information sooner,” Omtzigt said. A future cabinet must already take into account a setback of 17 billion euros. This does not include possible setbacks that the forming parties have been informed about.
With a bit of bad luck, the budget deficit will rise so high that European rules will be violated, Omtzigt feared. Then all kinds of supervisory rules come into effect and you will have to deal with mandatory cuts. “Then you cannot shape measures for social security,” he said. “People are already not making it to the end of the month.”
It was not clear in the broadcast why Omtzigt did not attempt to resolve these financial setbacks. Omtzigt always referred to Plasterk’s report, which will be published next Monday.
Plasterk previously denied that the documents were sent too late. He called it “a confused story” by Omtzigt. According to him, the fact that the documents were only shared at the end is “nonsense”.
Anyway. For Omtzigt it was the reason to leave. Although it remains a matter of speculation whether there will be a definitive break with PVV, VVD and BBB.
2024-02-06 22:31:28
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