For more than six months, D66 had resisted negotiations about a new cabinet with VVD, CDA and ChristenUnie, the ‘old’ coalition of Rutte III, but that seemed to be over on Wednesday evening: according to those involved, the four parties will still sit down at the table. to sit. That would be the advice of informateur Johan Remkes. The D66 parliamentary group discussed it late on Wednesday evening, but has not yet made a decision.
It seemed a logical and easy way a long time ago: continue with the four parties that had regained a majority in the elections on March 17. But at D66, the party that had won big with the campaign promise of ‘new leadership’, they soon made it clear that they were not waiting for that. D66 wanted “as progressive as possible” cabinet – not with the ChristenUnie, but with GroenLinks or the PvdA. And when those two started holding each other tightly: with both.
D66 edge
In the conversation on Wednesday, with nine parties at the table, others suddenly heard D66 leader Sigrid Kaag talking about a cabinet with a progressive edge: a D66 edge. At the PvdA the mood seemed resigned afterwards, at GroenLinks disappointment prevailed. In recent days, these two had hoped for a cabinet with six parties: VVD, D66, CDA, PvdA, GroenLinks and ChristenUnie.
On Wednesday, it would be about an extra-parliamentary cabinet, without a coalition, but with ministers from parties from the House of Representatives.
Johan Remkes himself was the first to arrive at Het Logement on Het Plein in the morning. Visibly out of temper. A day earlier, D66 members had told around that he had drunk a lot on Monday and had been ‘disturbed’. At the door, Remkes said that he “didn’t feel like nonsense”. “And it’s still raining.”
In the conference room Remkes got a box from almost all party leaders, but just when Kaag entered he turned around. Seconds later he waved at her. They talked for almost three hours about options for a new cabinet: based on a minority in the House of Representatives, extra-parliamentary or based on a majority.
Confessional
During the break – there were prepackaged sandwiches – the political leaders were called into Remkes’s house one by one in a separate room for the so-called ‘confessional procedure’. The biggest party first. And what was striking: for the first time in months, GroenLinks leader Jesse Klaver and Lilianne Ploumen of the PvdA did not talk together, but separately from each other with an informateur.
Their clinging to each other was seen by others as part of the great problem the formation had become. A coalition might have already existed with one of the two: VVD, CDA and D66 also thought that was a good idea. And the ChristenUnie, where the faction and the ministers feel themselves overburdened after four years of rule, also thought that it was now up to one of those left-wing parties to join a coalition.
GroenLinks and the PvdA had nothing to do with this. CDA and VVD, for their part, did not even want to try to find a way out with the two left-wing parties together, and those two parties also held on to each other. And so, as a sort of last resort to prevent new elections, the idea of a minority government was born. But D66 did not want that. GroenLinks and PvdA also had no intention of supporting such a cabinet – for those parties it was all or nothing. And D66 saw no point in having to keep looking for majorities in a House of Representatives with a majority of right-wing parties, together with two right-wing parties. D66 members thought: they would rather have new elections than such a cabinet.
But Remkes did investigate it from September 7, and in the talks with him D66 was led to an option that the party had vehemently rejected for months: negotiating with the ‘old’ coalition parties and therefore also with the ChristenUnie.
Dream of GroenLinks
In Het Logement it went like this on Wednesday: Sigrid Kaag appeared to have said during the confessional procedure that she would approve of an extra-parliamentary cabinet with the support of the ChristenUnie. Was she also prepared to negotiate with that party about an ‘ordinary’ majority government? The other party leaders heard at the table, again all together, how Kaag confirmed this to Remkes.
Also read: Confidence in government drops sharply
And so it seemed that the dream of GroenLinks in particular to finally show that they can also take responsibility for national government seemed to have come to an end. The failed negotiations about the Rutte III cabinet in 2017 were not well received by the party. This time it had to and would work; well before the March elections, the party had started preparations for negotiations. But those did not come for GroenLinks. And if it would succeed in the near future with the ChristenUnie: perhaps never with this formation.
For D66 it can be seen as a defeat. If that party ends up in a cabinet with the ChristenUnie again, the ‘rusty car’ that Kaag talked about in June, her intention to do things differently has not come to fruition. Kaag had already started spinning the past few days. Although it was still cautious at first: during the weekend she said that, with a view to the “national interest”, she would be the first to blink and would no longer have a block against the ChristenUnie if it wanted to sit down with PvdA too. and GreenLeft. Then it became a coalition with six parties.
The days after, D66 spread the story that Kaag had intended: let’s start with six, and if it ends with four, it’s also possible. Even if that fourth party at the table were the ChristenUnie, and GroenLinks and the PvdA no longer participated.
On Wednesday evening, Remkes sent VVD, CDA and D66 away with the message: I think this should be it, talk about it with your groups. The VVD quickly agreed, but the CDA is also certain that it would like to continue with the ChristenUnie. But it still seemed difficult for the D66 faction. On Thursday there will be further discussions in Het Logement. If things still go wrong, there seems to be only one way out: new elections.
A version of this article also appeared in NRC on the morning of September 30, 2021
source https://pledgetimes.com/kaag-died-in-the-confessional-at-remkes/
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