VVD leader Rutte has been appointed by the House of Representatives as formateur for a new cabinet. After a formation debate, a majority supports his appointment, so that he can start looking for a new cabinet team. It is expected to be on the king’s platform in January.
Tomorrow Rutte will receive Sophie Hermans (VVD), Sigrid Kaag (D66), Wopke Hoekstra (CDA) and Gert-Jan Segers (CU), with whom he concluded the coalition agreement yesterday. They will exchange names of people who could become ministers or secretary of state. In the afternoon there will be a press conference about Rutte’s working method.
From January 3, Rutte will speak to the candidates, who by then have been screened by the AIVD intelligence service.
Rutte’s appointment as formateur follows the parliamentary debate about yesterday’s coalition agreement presented. The informants Remkes and Koolmees also took part in this. Many parties praised the hard work of the informants, but there was also a lot of criticism about all kinds of points of the content of the agreement.
Discussion about healthcare costs
Many opposition parties object, in particular, to the coalition’s healthcare plans. They explain those plans as a structural austerity of about 5 billion, which they find unjustifiable in corona time. Coalition party the ChristenUnie in turn finds the plans too easy be dismissed as savings.
The PVV, SP, PvdA and GroenLinks in particular want the care plans to be fleshed out differently and GroenLinks leader Klaver does not think it is a sign of a new administrative culture that the plans are already financially fixed.
“You just think to continue in the old way. If you really want to work together, you have to provide the space for it, because this is how every coalition has worked up to now,” says Klaver.
Rutte warns against a “cuckoo young that pushes other expenses out of the nest”. Earlier, the Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR) came up with a similar warning.
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