Prime Minister Mark Rutte has not yet been able to find out exactly why the coalition parties lost so many votes in the provincial elections. He does acknowledge, however, that improvements must be made to a number of major files, such as the claims handling of the earthquakes in Groningen, the surcharge scandal and nitrogen policy. But exactly what improvements, remains unclear.
“You cannot make the perfect analysis,” said Rutte on Tuesday evening after a special meeting with the top of the cabinet in the Torentje about the election results.
Deputy Prime Ministers Sigrid Kaag (D66), Wopke Hoekstra (CDA) and Carola Schouten (CU) were also present, but they did not speak to the press after the meeting.
Rutte wants to get started with the nitrogen policy as soon as possible so that there is room for farmers, nature and construction. He declined to say whether the nitrogen target of halving emissions by 2030 is still on the table. That seems to be a point of contention in the coalition, but according to Rutte it was not about that.
The coalition agreement is therefore not broken open. “That was not the kind of conversation we had. But how we can improve a number of things in the short term.” According to the prime minister, the party leaders were not opposed to each other. “There was a good atmosphere.”
“Is politics still there for us?”
According to Rutte, the cabinet members also discussed the more fundamental question of whether politics is still there for everyone. According to the prime minister, this concerns people who live outside the Randstad and who have to deal with the arrival times of ambulances and police cars and accessibility by public transport.
“That also concerns people within cities. Can parents still send their children to the school of their choice?”
Here too a warning followed. Rutte: “We are not going to solve all of that tomorrow. These are major issues. The cabinet will enter into dialogue with itself and with society.”
Cabinet members have different explanations
Cabinet members have different views on the election defeat.
Earlier this week, Rutte spoke about a fairer distribution of tax money. The prime minister came up with this a day after the publication of an extensive study on the differences between regions.
Some areas, often outside the core economic areas, have to deal with “an accumulation of disadvantages”, such as accessibility, education and economic prosperity.
The CDA already had a focus on this subject. In the run-up to the provincial elections at the beginning of February, the party published a report on “the dichotomy” between city and countryside. A kind of search of a hundred pages into where these differences, also within cities, come from.
The party hints at wanting to adjust the nitrogen policy, but has never officially announced this.
D66 leader Kaag said last week that the causes of the dissatisfaction are mainly to be found in the recently published report on inequality by the Social and Cultural Planning Office (SCP). This inequality is not only economic in nature, but also social and cultural, according to the SCP.
Schouten thinks that “a combination of all those things” plays a role.
It is therefore not possible to give an unequivocal answer to the election results of 15 March. It is also questionable whether the cabinet and coalition should adjust national policy after regional elections.
