Exploding energy prices, unprecedented inflation, stalled asylum reception, aggressive farmers’ protests and a bloody war in the near abroad. Administratively, 2022 has been a complicated and difficult year. Gloomy outlook: 2023 will not immediately become much calmer.
This has to do with, among other things, March 15, the provincial elections. They can turn political relations upside down, resulting in administrative impasse on some already tough dossiers.
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Confidence in politics in general, and in this cabinet in particular, is low. In the most recent polls, three of the four coalition parties are in such bad shape – converted: a joint loss of around a third of their number of seats in the House of Representatives – that the authority of Rutte IV in the province is at stake and the position in the senate threatens to deteriorate. The cabinet is already six seats short of a majority there.
When the Netherlands goes to the polls on March 15, there will be mainly unknown regional candidates on the electoral lists. But those candidate States members will soon determine the power base of the current Hague coalition of VVD, D66, CDA and ChristenUnie. First of all with the formation of the provincial executive councils and then, at the end of May, with the election of the Senate by stage.
Deficit in the Senate is growing
Coalition circles think about the second problem the most lightly. Prime Minister Rutte, it sounds, has been used to a numerical deficit in the Senate since his second cabinet. Nevertheless, he and his fellow ministers always managed to gain sufficient support from opposition parties for budgets and important bills.
Just like the previous cabinet, Rutte IV leans a lot in the senate on the PvdA and GroenLinks. The increasingly close cooperation between these two progressive parties will soon take shape after the Senate elections, when both factions will merge into one. In the prognosis of Bearing pointer, a weighted average of three reputable polls, this left bloc is poised for promising gains. The ambition to become the largest senate faction does not even seem unattainable. On average, PvdA/GroenLinks now gets around 15 percent of the vote in the polls, just behind leader VVD.
A bigger problem for the current coalition is the expectation that the government parties will score particularly badly in the province on March 15. And that two opposition parties on the right in particular will make a serious bid for a management position in the provincial councils: the BoerBurgerBeweging (BBB) and JA21, an offshoot of the Forum for Democracy.
In that scenario, part of Rutte IV’s policy agenda will be at risk. After all, many government plans depend on the provinces for implementation, and two of them were already quite explosive last year: nitrogen and asylum.
From the moment, in June, that nitrogen minister Christianne van der Wal (VVD) presented her controversial map with indicative reduction targets per area, she said in her defense that it was up to the provinces to work out the detailed nitrogen plans in more detail. The provincial authorities have been given one year to do so. These ‘area plans’ must be completed by 1 July at the latest. And although mediator Johan Remkes put an end to the offending color card at the beginning of October, the deadline for provinces is still standing. Just like the main objective: nationally 50 percent less nitrogen emissions in 2030 compared to 2019.
Van der Wal hopes that the incumbent provincial administrators will be able to complete their plans before 15 March. After that, the colleges will be outgoing and will no longer want to take decisions on controversial dossiers. And it is not inconceivable that after 15 March, parties that find the existing nitrogen rules too rigid will start negotiating new municipal agreements. That will not bring harmonious cooperation with the cabinet any closer. Which deputy wants to implement ‘The Hague’s policy’ that he or she is opposed to on principle? JA21 and BBB already wrote a joint one last year alternative nitrogen planin which they called on the government parties VVD, CDA and ChristenUnie to “no longer allow themselves to be held hostage by D66”.
Obstruction threatens with asylum law
Incidentally, the cooperation with current provincial authorities is also already difficult. Last week, Overijssel was the first province to present an area plan. In it, the Board sets strict requirements for the cabinet to achieve the nitrogen targets: more time and more money.
For the implementation of another sensitive dossier, the government also relies on local and regional government: the ‘distribution law’ of State Secretary Eric van der Burg (Asylum, VVD), which should ensure a more balanced reception of asylum seekers. The bill was drafted in November after great tension within the coalition – and internally at the VVD.
The essence of the law is that unwilling municipalities can eventually be forced to receive asylum seekers. The provinces will play a coordinating role in this. Here too there is a threat of obstruction if parties that support a stricter asylum and migration policy, such as JA21, start co-governing in provincial councils.
If Rutte IV does not want to let things get that far after more than a year of reign, the government parties have only one thing to do: to limit the expected election defeat in March as much as possible. This means that the three coalition partners in particular that are losing – VVD, D66 and CDA – will want to profile themselves more sharply and more often in the coming weeks and months.
Think of CDA leader Wopke Hoekstra, who in August appeased angry farmers by wanting to get rid of the strict nitrogen paragraph in the coalition agreement – the 2030 deadline was no longer “sacred” for the CDA. According to a cabinet source, it was interviewin the AD, from the CDA’s point of view, necessary. Otherwise, Hoekstra threatened “a one-way electoral ravine”. So far without results, because although nitrogen adviser Remkes more or less repeated Hoekstra’s statement in his advice, the CDA is still weakened in the polls.
While Prime Minister Rutte in front of the cameras and D66 leader Kaag were internally annoyed about Hoekstra’s turn, the leaders of the coalition will want to give each other a little more space at election time. After all, none of the four coalition parties has an interest in the other’s loss being too great – nor in a breakthrough by opposition parties that do not like the current government policy.
A version of this article also appeared in the January 7, 2023 newspaper