The fall of the cabinet today or tomorrow is being seriously considered in The Hague. There is an atmosphere of crisis on the last working day of the House of Representatives. There will be another consultation on asylum and migration tonight, after the four coalition parties failed to agree yesterday.
The ruling parties had already agreed on a package of measures to combat the asylum crisis when Prime Minister and VVD leader Rutte presented new demands, says political journalist Mats Akkerman. “This mainly concerned the two-status system, which distinguishes between temporary and permanent refugees. Rutte would like to end family reunification for first-category refugees.”
This request is unacceptable for the ChristenUnie, as a result of which the parties risk ending up in a stalemate. To break through this, Rutte proposed a vote in the Cabinet, a highly unusual solution according to Akkerman. «There are seven ministers of the VVD and four of the CDA. If they vote in favour, they have a majority, and then D66 and ChristenUnie could pull the plug. Then they’d better keep the honor to themselves.’
D66
The prime minister’s actions are also going in the wrong direction at D66, says political journalist Leendert Beekman. ‘There they say: we’ve been talking about the subject for months, in reality it’s already all on the table. We were almost done and now Rutte is suddenly interfering with proposals that have been rejected for a long time.’
“ChristenUnie confirms story that VVD went through her very hard”
ChristenUnie is also not satisfied with the VVD. ‘There was a package that ChristenUnie was willing to vote for, they were ready to get out of it. They confirm the story that the VVD went through it very hard,’ says Beekman.
Tactics
That Rutte’s performance can be seen as a tactic, the VVD wants nothing to do with it. Group chair Sophie Hermans: “Reducing it to a game or a trick does not do justice to the intrinsic motivation of my cabinet colleagues, who are working on this issue and are looking for a proposal strong enough to reduce recruitment and with which we do justice to all parties.’
Less loud sounds can be heard from the CDA. In conversation with Beekman, Hugo de Jonge, also present at the talks as minister, blames the other government parties for a possible fall of the government. ‘If it explodes, it’s not our fault, it really depends on the VVD and the ChristenUnie. We’re not the ones to blow it up.’
“Why pop it when you know you’ll cut it in half next time?”
According to Akkerman, this attitude is not surprising. “The fact that the CDA is doing poorly in the polls also plays a role. Why pop it when you know you’ll cut it in half next time?
And so there seems to be a real possibility that we will be dealing with a caretaker cabinet tonight or tomorrow. “If they don’t reach an agreement tonight and Rutte puts the package he wants to vote on tomorrow, it could very well happen that the government falls tonight,” concludes Beekman.
Source: BNR
Fernando Dowling is an author and political journalist who writes for 24 News Globe. He has a deep understanding of the political landscape and a passion for analyzing the latest political trends and news.
