Nice, Prime Minister Rob Jetten is visiting. He can get coffee from Jesse Klaver of (then) GroenLinks-PvdA. And Easter eggs from Volt leader Laurens Dassen. But how will the government look for majorities? By looking for some kind of informal tolerating partners? Does he want to conclude partial agreements on issues with opposition parties? Does he take it one vote at a time?
“I haven’t seen a plan,” Klaver grumbles after talking to Jetten for 45 minutes. The D66 member came by for the first time as Prime Minister on Wednesday.
“The cabinet is still looking into this,” notes Laurens Dassen on the radio after his coffee date with Jetten, also that day.
Jetten himself remains very pleasant and helpful during his rounds. Why, for example, does he not invite them to his beautiful room at the Ministry of General Affairs? The Prime Minister, he says NRCwants to show that he “makes the effort” by coming to parliament on a busy meeting day. He calls it “service provision”.
The minority cabinet (66 seats in the House of Representatives and 22 in the Senate) is the requesting party, that much is clear. The opposition is necessary for majorities to get far-reaching cuts through the Senate and House of Representatives. An almost impossible task.
But wasn’t that also the case in 2012? At the time, coalition parties PvdA and VVD had eight votes too few in the Senate and ministers also visited opposition parties to gather support for their unpopular billion-dollar cuts and tax increases.
Still, it worked. PvdA and VVD found more or less permanent partners in D66, ChristenUnie and SGP. After the end of the government period, which they were the only cabinet to complete after the turn of the millennium, this newspaper would write in the commentary: “The paradoxical result is that a cabinet that is unstable on paper may well go down in history as one of the greatest post-war reformers.
NRC called seven politicians at the time, some of whom off the record. What lessons did they learn? And can Jetten and his ministers do anything with that?
Lesson 1Clutter can lead to results
First of all, to put things into perspective: the process after the installation of Rutte II was also messy. And even then, the cabinet initially had no plan. Diederik Samsom, then PvdA leader, recently described in his Volkskrant-column how they planned to simply ‘drive’ the budget into the Senate. They would shop together left and right for support per proposal. Samsom, dryly: “Things turned out differently.”
The obvious ally, the CDA executive party, was on a ‘responsibility holiday’. At least, that’s what the VVD called it. The CDA was able to single-handedly help the coalition gain a majority. But, says then CDA leader Sybrand Buma by telephone, “we had lost seats in two elections in a row, and at that time I had no desire to be drawn into a cabinet again.”
And the other opposition parties? They wanted something in return for their support. So the coalition had to switch to plan B: negotiation.
It was a huge Polish day. After three days of talking it was clear: this is not going to work
This turned out to be complete chaos in the first phase. Everyone talked to everyone about everything, describes Mark Harbers, financial spokesman for the VVD faction at the time. “It was a huge Polish day. After three days of talking to all opposition parties it was clear: this is not going to work.”
After that it became “a knockout race,” he says. First, the SP and 50Plus dropped out, as they believed that AOW or pension should not be compromised. In the negotiations with D66, SGP, CU and GroenLinks, everyone kept their cards close to their chest. “Numerically, one party was too many at the table.” It was only when GroenLinks, for various reasons, also left the table that D66, SGP and CU – which from then on were called ‘the constructive three’ or ‘C3’ – would provide tolerable support for the entire budget and the major reforms in the financial and economic field, after some of their wishes had been met.
The lesson, according to Samsom: such significant cuts are only possible with permanent tolerating partners. And also: the beginning always takes some searching and is messy.
The complicating factor is that Jetten and his associates are in both chambers have a minority. This limits the options in the search for support.
And then the (staged) elections of the Senate will be next year. Campaign time never helps for negotiations where parties have to make concessions. And if an alliance does succeed, the majority could be at risk again after the elections. During the time of Rutte II, there were Senate elections in 2015. “The major reforms had already been passed by both Houses,” says Wouter Koolmees, financial spokesperson for D66 at the time.
Prime Minister Mark Rutte (VVD), Alexander Pechtold (D66), Kees van der Staaij (SGP) and Arie Slob (CU) after negotiations on the housing market.
Photo Martijn Beekman/ANP
lesson 2Economic malaise can help
“The sacrifices that will be required in the coming years are great,” VVD and PvdA wrote in the 2012 coalition agreement. When Rutte II stood on the steps of Huis ten Bosch Palace, the Netherlands was in a deep economic crisis. In 2008, the bank Lehman Brothers collapsed and the credit crisis broke out. House prices fell sharply, the economy shrank, unemployment rose and a debt crisis followed in Italy, Greece and Spain, among others. Also the Dutch triple-Astatus, which allowed the government to borrow cheaply, was in danger.
Koolmees says that external pressure helped. “As an opposition party, we also felt the urgency and responsibility that the country had to remain governable in such difficult times.”
And there was a common goal, says Harbers (VVD). The European rules to limit the budget deficit to a maximum of 3 percent of gross domestic product were sacred to many Dutch parties. Partly because the Netherlands would otherwise be much less credible in being able to hold Southern European countries accountable for their debts.
That’s why just about everyone was talking about cutting back. Even SP member Emile Roemer wanted to raise 10 billion by, among other things, increasing corporate income tax, adjusting the mortgage interest deduction and cutting healthcare bureaucracy, he said during the campaign in a TV program Outside court. “’Ho ho, be frugal’ was widespread in Dutch Calvinist culture,” Harbers recalls.
The Brussels deficit standard at the time, say those involved, is comparable to the increased NATO standard now, about which there is also much agreement in parliament. And now economic malaise seems unavoidable. Not because of a credit crisis but because of a war in Iran. The Dutch Central Bank warned this week of rising inflation.
Jetten now also seems to hope for that unanimity. In his weekly press conference two weeks ago, he said that he believes the crisis in the Middle East underlines for the Netherlands “how important it is to really make a number of fundamental choices about how we maintain our welfare state in the long term.” He continued: “So that when things really get exciting, you still have the fat on your bones to give consumers and entrepreneurs extra support.”
One difference: PvdA and VVD found a middle ground in their negotiations. They would make cuts to put public finances in order (that is what the VVD wanted), and in return they would level the playing field (a wish of the PvdA). The VVD leader was nicknamed ‘Marx Rutte’ at that time.
Now, at the insistence of the VVD, redistribution has not yet started in the coalition agreement. In fact, the burden on labor is increased, while the burden on assets remains unaffected.
That is why there is much more misunderstanding and unwillingness among left-wing parties and unions this time to help the cabinet with cuts. Rutte and Samsom managed to conclude a social agreement in 2013 that also formed a framework for further political negotiations. Dick Koerselman, then interim union chairman of FNV, said after his introduction to the Jetten cabinet: “Why don’t you collect that money from assets? Why do you leave the mortgage interest deduction in place? Why do you mainly target people who just make it to the end of the month with the tax increase?”
lesson 3The coalition must learn to swallow and allow moments of victory
It is Monday, October 14, 2013, three days after the presentation of the agreement on the 2014 budget between the coalition and D66, ChristenUnie and SGP. At a military barracks in Ermelo, Christian Union faction leader Arie Slob cuts the cake he brought with the party logo with an Army sabre. His party had prevented the curtain from falling on this barracks in negotiations with the coalition. And they want to celebrate that with the soldiers.
For Arie Slob, working with the cabinet was a very effective way for a small party to exert influence from the opposition, he now says. “On a large number of subjects, with recognizable fingerprints.”
Recognizability did require political choreography. The agreement was that the parties were partly allowed to submit amendments (law adjustments) during budget discussions, so that they could create their own moment of success in which the party could show how it adjusted policy, says Slob.
They had to allow us to put our stamp on the coalition agreement and also draw attention to it
Two conditions were very important, says Slob. First of all: modesty of coalition factions. “They had to swallow and give us the space to put our stamp on the coalition agreement and also draw attention to it.” And they had to regularly visit those parties and continue to consult with them to keep the parties informed of the latest developments.
In addition, like Mark Harbers of the VVD and Alexander Pechtold of D66, he mentions a mutual basis of trust. The negotiating financial spokespersons had already been through a lot together, says Harbers. “Most of them had a few years of experience and during those years they experienced one craziness after another. A bank that collapsed, the next euro country in trouble, all kinds of confidential briefings that we were sometimes not even allowed to inform our own group leaders about.”
That creates a bond, he says, and it helped with the negotiations. “We knew each other well and were aware of each other’s sensitivities.”
That trust still needs to be worked on, Slob sees. The proposed violation of the 2019 pension agreement by the minority coalition, with the plan to increase the retirement age more quickly, for example. “What signal do you send about agreements you make with the cabinet? Partly through the parties that concluded the pension agreement at the time.”
He also mentions the way in which Finance Minister Eelco Heinen (VVD) says without consultation, after the House of Representatives had met extensively and agreed to a new wealth tax, that a proposal must “go back to the drawing board”. Slob: “It won’t work out like this.”
And even more important than mutual relations: there was something to be gained from an agreement that was not far removed from the opposition parties involved. Also because the ‘C3’ stood ideologically between the PvdA and VVD. That is really different now, and all veterans independently mention that as a big difference. The coalition of D66, VVD and CDA is in the center and must move towards one of the flanks. This will require more concessions from one coalition party than from the other. Moreover, no one will have forgotten how the PvdA electorally never overcame the reforms of Rutte II.
It is therefore not surprising that D66 members say that they want to achieve majorities on the left, while VVD members answer that they want to look to the right.
Koolmees, who was also a scout for the current minority cabinet: “Now on the one hand you have GroenLinks-PvdA [Progressief Nederland] and on the other hand BBB to achieve a majority in the Senate.” With a sense of understatement: “As a scout, I already thought that was an issue.”
