Wow, lots of stuff going on now.

http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2 ... _a_min.php

Formal talks to start on a minority CDA Liberal government

Friday 30 July 2010

The Netherlands is set to get its first post-war minority cabinet, if talks between the VVD, PVV and CDA are successful.

The three parties agreed on Friday to start discussions on forming a minority cabinet between the VVD and CDA which will rule with support from the anti-Islam PVV.

VVD leader Mark Rutte said on Friday evening that he, CDA leader Maxime Verhagen and Geert Wilders saw 'perspectives' for such as cabinet. The three leaders have been in exploratory talks all week.

In a joint statement, the parties said they had agreed to 'accept' differences of opinion over Islam and 'fully grant each other freedom of speech'.

Happy

Wilders told reporters he was 'extremely happy' with the move and that a minority right-wing cabinet will be 'fantastic' for the Netherlands.

He said he expects a tough stand on immigration and integration, more police on the streets and better care for the elderly in return for his support. He will also continue to speak his mind about Islam, he said.

The parties have also agreed to cut government spending by €18bn, the Volkskrant quoted Wilders as saying.

CONTINUED

A number of political scientists are dismayed that Wilders would get to have his cake and eat it too:
http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2 ... demics.php

Political opponents, academics say PVV influence will be great

Saturday 31 July 2010

A minority VVD CDA cabinet supported by the PVV will give the anti-Islam leader Geert Wilders a lot of influence on government policy, academics and politicians say in Saturday's NRC.

The three party leaders are expected to start talks next week on drawing up right-wing policy which the PVV will support from outside government.

Wilders has already said he will continue to speak his mind about Islam and expects tough policy on integration, immigration and public safety in return for his backing.

Responsibility

Wim Voermans, professor of constitutional law at the University of Leiden said the PVV has everything to gain with a minority cabinet. 'Wilders wins a lot of time. He lets it be seen that he wants to take responsibility for government,' Voermans told the NRC. 'But he can always walk away and say 'they really don't want me. I have done everything I could.'

And politicial scientist Marcel Boogers said the VVD and CDA will be very dependent on the PVV which will have a disproportionate influence on the cabinet. 'Wilders does not have to supply any ministers and get his hands dirty but he can hold hostage and blackmail the VVD and CDA,' Boogers said.

A minority VVD and CDA cabinet which looks for support from different parties depending on the policy would be a preferable option, he said.

CONTINUED

This option also didn't sit well with the Left:
http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2 ... _right.php

Left wing parties oppose right-wing minority cabinet plan

Saturday 31 July 2010

Left-wing MPs have called on cabinet negotiator Ruud Lubbers to come parliament and explain why he deviated from his commission and sanctioned talks on forming a minority government.

Lubbers was charged by queen Beatrix with investigating 'realistic options' for forming a majority cabinet but has now cleared the way for a minority cabinet made up of the CDA and VVD.

Lubbers is planning to meet other party leaders on Monday but Labour, Socialist, GroenLinks and D66 Liberal MPs say they want parliament to be recalled from the summer break to discuss the issue.

CONTINUED

A number of senior Christian Democrats now say "no way":
http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2 ... s_abou.php

CDA stalwarts have doubts about link to PVV, congress to decide

Sunday 01 August 2010

A number of senior Christian Democrats have come out against the CDA agreeing to be part of a coalition government which is backed by Geert Wilders' anti-Islam PVV.

Wilders is 'far too slippery' to support a minority cabinet made up of the CDA and VVD, Arie Oostlander, head of the CDA's academic institute, to the Financieele Dagblad.

'The PVV is party which aims to hike up opposition rather than bridge tensions,' said former social affairs minister Bert de Vries. 'My party is the last one that should want to join in with that.'

It suddenly became worse than that since the entire upper house delegation of the CDA flipped out over embracing Wilders:
http://www.rnw.nl/english/bulletin/no-c ... ty-cabinet

A minority cabinet formed by the conservative VVD and Christian Democrats, and supported by Geert Wilders' Freedom Party (PVV), cannot count on the support of the Christian Union members in the Upper House of the Dutch parliament. And such a cabinet would need that support to maintain a majority in the Upper House.

A special press release written by Egbert Schuurman, chair of the Upper House Christian Union party, claims that Mr Wilders too easily casts aside the standards of a democratic constitutional state. It appeared one day after the VVD, CDA and PVV announced that they intended to start minority cabinet negotiations.

"For such a man as Wilders," wrote Mr Schuurman, "becoming the friend of a governing coalition earns him a stronger stage from which to gain even more support in Europe. With all the consequences that would entail: people being set against each other on the grounds of their religious differences. That can, in the long term, have serious - violent - consequences."

Then elements of the VVD revolted:
http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2 ... _to_di.php

VVD elder calls on Rutte to distance himself from Wilders on Islam

Sunday 01 August 2010

Prominent VVD politician Frans Weisglas has called on his party's leader Mark Rutte to publicly distance himself from Geert Wilders' 'discriminatory ideas'.

The VVD and CDA are to start talks on forming a new minority government next week which will have Wilders' backing in parliament.

According to an official statement published on Friday, the three parties have decided not to form a cabinet together because of differences of opinion between the CDA and Wilders over Islam.

But Rutte has not made any public comments about Wilders' anti-Islam policies. 'I do not understand why he does not do so, and I am sorry about that as a fellow party member,' Weisglas told a radio show on Saturday night.

CONTINUED

Now Rutte is shooting his mouth off. Basically this boils down to his seeing polls that his party would lose seats to Wilders's party if he tries to go Purple Plus, so he got scared off and decided he'd better embrace Wilders out of cynical political gain:
http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2 ... is_the.php

A right-wing government is the only option, says VVD leader Rutte

Monday 02 August 2010

Liberal VVD leader Mark Rutte is only willing to enter talks on forming a right-wing government with the CDA, he said in an interview with the Telegraaf on Monday.

'I am no longer available for any other variants,' Rutte said, effectively slamming the door on anything but a minority VVD CDA government with PVV support in parliament.

Rutte said it is incomprehensible that Labour leader Job Cohen is now crying 'crocodile tears' about the decision to hold formal talks on a right-wing government. 'He blocked the idea of a Labour, Liberal CDA cabinet and did not want the purple plus variant either,' Rutte was quoted as saying.

Parliament

Left-wing parties have demanded parliament be recalled from its summer break to debate the decision to look at a minority cabinet with the queen's negotiator Ruud Lubbers. That debate will take place this week.

They want Lubbers to come parliament and explain why he deviated from his commission and sanctioned talks on forming a minority government.

Lubbers was charged by queen Beatrix with investigating 'realistic options' for forming a majority cabinet but has now cleared the way for a minority cabinet made up of the CDA and VVD with PVV support.

CONTINUED

Now Emile Roemer of the socialists is trying to put together the CDA, socialists, Labour, and the Greens.

Basically it now is all about the CDA. I figure they'll eventually embrace Wilders, or at least the leadership of the party will. The rank and file, not so much.

I have no earthly idea what the hell happens next.

There is only a majority of one seat in the parliament for a right-wing coalition. It could be that some christian democrat parliamentarians will secede and make a right-wing majority impossible. So, it is still difficult to say whther this coalition will come. The leaders of the three parties are all very happy with it, but there are backbenchers, party members and voters among the christian democrats who are principally anti-Wilders, including two former prime-ministers out of four still alive.

NineOneFour wrote:It suddenly became worse than that since the entire upper house delegation of the CDA flipped out over embracing Wilders:
http://www.rnw.nl/english/bulletin/no-c ... ty-cabinet

A minority cabinet formed by the conservative VVD and Christian Democrats, and supported by Geert Wilders' Freedom Party (PVV), cannot count on the support of the Christian Union members in the Upper House of the Dutch parliament. And such a cabinet would need that support to maintain a majority in the Upper House.

A special press release written by Egbert Schuurman, chair of the Upper House Christian Union party, claims that Mr Wilders too easily casts aside the standards of a democratic constitutional state. It appeared one day after the VVD, CDA and PVV announced that they intended to start minority cabinet negotiations.

"For such a man as Wilders," wrote Mr Schuurman, "becoming the friend of a governing coalition earns him a stronger stage from which to gain even more support in Europe. With all the consequences that would entail: people being set against each other on the grounds of their religious differences. That can, in the long term, have serious - violent - consequences."

The Christian Union is another political party. There are three christian policital parties, all calling themselves right-wing. But the Christian Union is left-wing on a number of issues. The possible right-wing coalition doesn't have a majority in the senate, so the senate can block laws coming from the Second Chamber of the parliament.

Thanks for the info NineOneFour

I agree Daan. There are a lot of problems with this coalition if it does come.

1. The CDA congress has to give its approval which I doubt they will give.

2. Rebel members of CDA and VVD. With only one seat majority it very flimzy at the best and down right bloody stupid at the worst. The cabinet can have its decisions sabotaged by practically every group in parliament.

3. The Senate. This is a fundimental problem. The PVV having no Senators leaves the cabinet wide open for plenty of broadsides from the other parties and without the CU they are sunk in harbour.

The Dutch parliamentry parties do not have so-called 'whips' as in Britain so anyone can vote as they like and not be sactioned. A coalition needs a majority of at least 10 seats to even have half a chance. If a member of one of these three parties is sick and does not attend the majority has gone.

The holy cow for Rutte is tax deductions on mortgages. Most VVD's tend to be of the well heeled variety and live in the more expensive houses and enjoy large tax deductions on their mortgages. The PvdA thinks it is about time that these tax deductions should be reduced.
BTW so does the EU.

The Netherlands has had its fingers ticked more than once for still allowing these deductions to exist as it is the only country to have them and it is making EU tax reforms difficult. So while Rutte can go trying to preserve them they going have to go sometime.

NineoneFour wrote:Now Emile Roemer of the socialists is trying to put together the CDA, socialists, Labour, and the Greens.

While this in theory is possible I think it is a stillbirth.

Scot Dutchy wrote:

NineoneFour wrote:Now Emile Roemer of the socialists is trying to put together the CDA, socialists, Labour, and the Greens.

While this in theory is possible I think it is a stillbirth.

I think he's basically doing real-life trolling. If the CDA and VVD can form a minority cabinet, why not him?

Well the CDA/VVD minority cabinet is not in existance yet. I would like to see it achieve a vote of confindence.
A left wing minority cabinet just would not get the support from the second chamber same problem.

An alternative could be: Labour Party, CDA, Democrats, Greens and Christian Union. That has been opted. But, it has only 76 seats, exactly the one seat for a majority. Than we are back in the 70s! 5-party cabinet.

NineOneFour wrote:I think he's basically doing real-life trolling. If the CDA and VVD can form a minority cabinet, why not him?

I can imagine that politicians need to have some fun in their work.

I got this bad feeling that the right-wing coalition will be it, but it will not last for 4 years.

Daan wrote:I got this bad feeling that the right-wing coalition will be it, but it will not last for 4 years.

Four months more like

Well, here we are again...

http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2 ... update.php

CDA meeting adjourned - Update

Wednesday 01 September 2010

Just 30 minutes after the resumption of their crisis talks on the coalition negotiations, Christian Democrat MPs again adjourned their discussion, according to press reports on Wednesday afternoon. Party leader Maxime Verhagen told the press talks would now continue with individual MPs on whether or not to continue negotiating with the anti-Islam PVV.

The crisis talks began on Tuesday afternoon and were adjourned seven hours later shortly after midnight. On Wednesday talks resumed at midday but lasted only 30 minutes.

The aim of the individual discussions is to arrive at a 'unanimous standpoint', according to press reports.

On Tuesday sources told various newspapers Ab Klink, caretaker health minister and party leader Maxime Verhagen's chief aide at the coalition talks, is no longer supporting the proposed Liberal VVD and Christian Democrat government, supported in parliament by the PVV. This led to the crisis talks.

CONTINUED

It's now a complete mess.

I don't see how they intend to get to 76 votes anyway:

http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2 ... s_over.php

Prospective CDA MP quits over Wilders alliance

Tuesday 31 August 2010

CDA prospective MP Jan Schinkelshoek has pulled out of national politics because of his party's plans to form a government with the support of the anti-Islam PVV.

Schinkelshoek was 27th on the CDA's list of candidates in the June general election and was likely to become an MP once a new government has been formed and some parliamentarians are promoted to ministers.

The CDA, PVV and VVD Liberals are currently in talks on forming a new cabinet.

Schinkelshoek was an MP in the previous parliament.

I think both the Netherlands and Belgium are spearheading an experiment. How long can a country function without a government? We won't let those damned dutchies win this battle!

When it comes to being stupid we always beat them hands down. In the interest of fairness, they get to beat us at everything else .

It is still not a long formation proces. The elections were in june and it is now september. So, it took 3 months to get here. In 2007, the government came after half a year. The longest formation took 2/3 years. I think this formation will be less than a half year, so it will be of average size.

Problem is that we always have several parties, and they are afraid of losing seats to the other parties, so the fight a lot about the details in order to good in the next elections. These problems started in the late 19th century, when liberals, protestans, catholics and socialists got uneasy election results, and they all dislike each other.

The problem in Belgium is far worse than in Holland. Belgium is at the verge of collapse as a state. In Holland the fight is on immigration and economics.

Maybe there will be a business cabinet, meaning a cabinet of people who don't belong to a party or who don't belong to the inner crowd of a party. But, it probably won't. Another possibility is the present right-wing coalition, or some other coalition of which i wouldn't know anymore what that would be.

Sgt Kelly wrote:When it comes to being stupid we always beat them hands down. In the interest of fairness, they get to beat us at everything else .

Now now, the Belgians have the best beers in the world.

It is not going to happen. It will last one day IMHO. There will be a vote confidence and that will be that. I think Wilders basically is hoping for fresh elections. He is riding high (Dont sak me why) in the polls and another election would give him even more power a la Denmark.

It is one bloody awful mess thanks to the bloody CDA. If they had said no at the beginning Paars Plus would be in power.

Scot Dutchy wrote:It is not going to happen. It will last one day IMHO. There will be a vote confidence and that will be that. I think Wilders basically is hoping for fresh elections. He is riding high (Dont sak me why) in the polls and another election would give him even more power a la Denmark.

It is one bloody awful mess thanks to the bloody CDA. If they had said no at the beginning Paars Plus would be in power.

I guess the good news is that everyone is pretty much fed up with the CDA. Polls show them losing even more seats.

Although Wilders would gain. I don't know. Maybe putting him in the drivers' seat for the next coalition building mess would show that he's useless once and for all.

Latest news is that the coalition talks continues again. Even if the cabinet comes, than it is good that there was such a huge resistance against the fascism of Wilders in the CDA. The bad thing is that the majority of the VVD and the CDA don't mind making a deal with someone who openly and agressively discrimenates a part of the Dutch population and agressively denounces everybody who opposes him for it. The VVD and CDA prefer this because they want a society where poor people can't have proper health care, education and wage for work. They want an American style economy, despite the bad practise of the American society at the moment. Maybe i should migrate to a more decent country, like New Zealand.

Daan wrote:Latest news is that the coalition talks continues again. Even if the cabinet comes, than it is good that there was such a huge resistance against the fascism of Wilders in the CDA. The bad thing is that the majority of the VVD and the CDA don't mind making a deal with someone who openly and agressively discrimenates a part of the Dutch population and agressively denounces everybody who opposes him for it. The VVD and CDA prefer this because they want a society where poor people can't have proper health care, education and wage for work. They want an American style economy, despite the bad practise of the American society at the moment. Maybe i should migrate to a more decent country, like New Zealand.

The VVD I can barely stomach as they are basically atheistic libertarians, but at least they aren't social conservatives. The CDA seem like they stand for nothing. Wilders is just batshit insane, and according to people on here, his followers on the Internet resemble American conservatives.

It's most depressing.