After 7 months, the Dutch finally got a government
However, there’s no unity yet
To elect a government in the Netherlands, there has to be a majority in the Parliament. To be a majority, a party or a coalition has to gather 76 seats. In March 2017, the legislative elections didn’t allow to form this majority. Therefore, it has been three months that the Netherlands don’t have a government. Mark Rutte’s (prime minister) party, the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD, Right liberal) is the major one with 33 seats. Until June, it tried to form a coalition with the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA, christian & conservatism, 19 seats), the Democrats 66 (D66, social liberal & progressive, 19 seats) and the GroenLinks (green & progressive, 14 seats) who gained 10 seats at March’s elections.
Unfortunately, the negotiations to form the coalition failed because of disagreements over immigration policies. In the opposition, G. Wilder’s nationalist party is the second major party, with 20 seats in the Parliament.
Seven months after the elections, the government has finally been formed. The coalition is composed of the VVD, the CDA, the D66 and the Christian Union (CU). However, what the Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant calls “a patchwork agreement” doesn’t have a proper coherence or unity yet.
But as Eurotopics shows, some commentators think it’s a “solid basis for future cooperation”, which will resolutely go forward, slowly but surely.
