Jul 07, 2023 at 11:45 PMUpdate: an hour ago
The Rutte IV cabinet fell on Friday evening. The collapsed asylum negotiations are fatal to the coalition after a government period of 543 days. A look back at a cabinet that faltered before it even started.
Follow the latest developments surrounding the fall of the Rutte IV cabinet in our live blog
On January 10, 2022, the longest and one of the messiest cabinet formations ever will come to an end. Right from the start, a crisis of confidence takes place within the former coalition parties. VVD leader Mark Rutte is at the center of this.
His political future hangs by a thread on April 1, 2021. That is because Rutte does not speak the truth about his involvement in the memo “Omtzigt, function elsewhere”, which is unintentionally photographed.
In the months that follow, the parties work hard to restore confidence. Unexpectedly, the four parties from the Rutte III cabinet still continue together. They promise a new administrative culture and want to restore confidence in politics.
Receive a notification of new messages about the fall of the Rutte IVB cabinetStay informed with notifications
Cabinet starts unanimously, partly due to war in Ukraine
That goal will fade into the background if Russia invades Ukraine in February 2022. More than a month after the cabinet took office, the war and support for Ukraine play a leading role in politics in The Hague. There is hardly any room to disagree.
But soon the relations within the coalition are on edge again. This will happen after Minister Christianne van der Wal (Nature and Nitrogen) published a ‘nitrogen map’ in June. It indicates how much nitrogen emissions must be reduced per location in the Netherlands. Huge farmers’ protests and threats are the result.
Struggles arise within the cabinet. D66 and the CDA are diametrically opposed to each other more than once. For example, CDA leader and Deputy Prime Minister Wopke Hoekstra suddenly wants to distance himself from the coalition deadline to halve nitrogen emissions by 2030.
Nitrogen also a thorny issue for the cabinet
It leads to annoyance among many other cabinet members. After mediation by VVD star Johan Remkes, the cabinet decides to work on an agricultural agreement. This should restore the farmers’ confidence in the government. But after months of consultation, those negotiations collapsed in June this year.
A few months earlier, the coalition suffered a defeat in the provincial elections. The result is disastrous. It mainly leads to unrest within the CDA. The party has been in the doldrums since the summer of 2020.
Hoekstra is putting the relations on edge by demanding a renegotiation of the government’s nitrogen approach. This will be postponed after the collapse of the agricultural agreement.
In the year and a half that the Rutte IV cabinet has ruled, it also loses two ministers. Minister of Agriculture Henk Staghouwer is stepping down because he will not be able to outline perspectives for farmers in the summer of 2022.
In June this year, VVD minister Dennis Wiersma (Education) will be added. He resigns after complaints about his behavior.
1:58 Play button
Asylum crisis also played out last summer
In addition to the nitrogen discussion, the summer of 2022 will also be dominated by the asylum crisis. Hundreds of people have to sleep outside for weeks at the application center in Ter Apel. Numerous organizations are sounding the alarm about the harrowing situation in asylum reception. Doctors without Borders feels compelled to help in the Netherlands for the first time in history.
The VVD takes a hard line and demands measures to limit the flow of asylum seekers. D66 and ChristenUnie feel more in favor of a distribution law. This allows the government to force municipalities to receive asylum seekers.
Reluctantly, the VVD gave the green light for the distribution law last fall. But the party only does this after VVD leader Rutte has promised that he will work to limit the flow of asylum seekers.
That asylum dispute, which continues to simmer, is now fatal to the coalition. In order to attract fewer asylum seekers to the Netherlands, the VVD wants to limit family reunification for war refugees. That is bad for the ChristenUnie this week. The restriction is a red line for that party. The government will eventually never get over this crisis atmosphere.
It is not clear when new elections will take place. That will be mid-November at the earliest.
The opposition has already asked for the cabinet to leave
A large part of the opposition has already asked the cabinet to pack up. This happened in response to the report of the parliamentary committee of inquiry that investigated the Groningen gas dossier. The committee drew rock-hard conclusions about the role of the government in gas extraction, and also specifically the role of Rutte.2:22Play button
2023-07-07 21:45:00
#umpteenth #stumbling #block #fatal #Rutte #cabinet #Fall #cabinet
