An important day in The Hague: at 10.15 am the debate starts on how to proceed in the cabinet formation. The eyes are first focused on PVV leader Geert Wilders. As leader of the largest party so far, he has the lead, but his dream cabinet on the right has not yet gotten off the ground. And what does NSC leader Pieter Omtzigt do? Don’t miss anything in our live blog.
Now that NSC has said that it does not want to join a cabinet with PVV, VVD and BBB, the formation is at an impasse. The chance of a right-wing majority cabinet seems nil, and Ronald Plasterk can say goodbye to his job as informant. How will the formation continue, and who will be called in to make chocolate from it? The House of Representatives will debate on Wednesday.
It was an eventful week in politics in The Hague. After weeks of negotiations Pieter Omtzigt (NSC) stopped negotiations with PVV, VVD and BBB. He was shocked by financial documents from the ministries, which, according to him, had also been submitted much too late.
In addition, as emerged days later from the report by informant Ronald Plasterk, little had been achieved. There were agreements about the rule of law that the parties should adhere to, a big step for Geert Wilders, but the ‘rule of law distance’ between NSC and PVV was still too great for Omtzigt to join a usual majority cabinet. There were also large differences in views on other topics such as asylum and housing.
What now? Omtzigt says: let the other three parties form a minority cabinet, then NSC could possibly tolerate that. But do the others want that? After all, Dilan Yesilgöz said immediately after the election results that the VVD did too would only like to tolerate. Wilders and Van der Plas persist: we prefer a ‘normal’ majority cabinet. That will be difficult without Pieter Omtzigt.
Then the question remains: who will be the new informant? Informer Plasterk wrote in his report that he would in any case appoint a new person with ‘administrative and political experience’. Names like Kees van der Staaij and Johan Remkes are being bandied around, but who it will actually be will have to become clear after the debate on Wednesday. The informant is appointed by a parliamentary majority.
09:45
The debate starts at 10.15 am. Every speaker has one speaking time of 5 minutesand may speak in order of the election results: Geert Wilders (PVV) first, and Joost Eerdmans (JA21) last.
An important debate, but you probably don’t have to stay up late for it. According to the planning of Chamber President Martin Bosma, the next debate can start around 5 p.m.
09:42
Eyes are focused on the four parties that since December 14th sat at the negotiating table with informateur Plasterk: PVV, VVD, BBB and NSC.
The latter party decided last week that it did not want to negotiate further with the rest. Why were Geert Wilders, Dilan Yesilgöz and Caroline van der Plas unable to keep Pieter Omtzigt at the table?
09:37
Welcome to our live blog. Here we will keep you informed of everything that happens surrounding the parliamentary debate on the informateur’s final report. That debate will start at 10.15 am.
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