Pushing the nitrogen disagreement forward does not help the country’s already fragile confidence in the Rutte IV cabinet. The marriage of convenience between VVD, D66, CDA and CU will last for a while. But the dark clouds above the government are not disappearing.
The cabinet needed three hours of meetings this week to find an answer to the crushing election defeat. There was no real answer yet: Rutte IV will do his best on all problem files and if it is up to the CDA, the nitrogen agreements will be overhauled in a few months.
Voters already gave a reason for their dissatisfaction on election day in an Ipsos survey. The ‘incompetence’ of administrators was the main reason for not voting for a coalition party. It has been apparent for some time that several ministers are struggling, despite the expansion of the cabinet. And in which other areas does the 29-strong team run aground?
inexperienced forces
“This is a dramatic development,” says PVV MP Martin Bosma. He has just watched from the Chamber benches how D66 Secretary of State Gunay Uslu, who has only been in her post for more than a year, is once again announcing her departure. “When this cabinet term is over,” she says, “I will start doing business again.” That is ‘remarkable’, thinks Bosma. “There is plenty of speculation about the end of this cabinet and now we have a minister who says: I will not come back after this cabinet term. What does she know that we don’t?”
The incident symbolizes part of the government team of the Rutte IV cabinet: some posts are politically inexperienced, while the country is crying out for solutions from The Hague. At D66, under the name of ‘new leadership’, it was a conscious choice to cycle fresh new faces into the cabinet.
It produces mixed results. Scientist Robbert Dijkgraaf, for example, enjoys a lot of voter confidence as minister of education, according to surveys. Care minister Ernst Kuipers receives a lot of criticism from his old sector, but has concluded a care agreement and made the difficult decision about closing children’s heart centers. But with Uslu things are a lot less glorious.
Faithful, gold or foul
The opposite also happens: rewarding loyal party members with a cabinet position. The VVD in particular has a hand in it, but other parties are doing it too. And that doesn’t always turn out very happily either. Eric van der Burg, for example, was put on the asylum post by the VVD after his years of aldermanship in Amsterdam. But despite the praise for his hard work, he is still not getting anything done to stem the flow of asylum seekers in the long term. And under his watch, asylum seekers ended up outside on the grass at the Ter Apel application center at night. Meanwhile, asylum expenditure is rising to unprecedented heights.
D66 has given Alexandra van Huffelen the State Secretariat for Kingdom Relations and Digitization. In the previous cabinet she kept her head above water as State Secretary of Finance in the benefits file, but in the new team she certainly does not play the stars of heaven. The House of Representatives chased them into the curtains by simply ignoring fierce criticism of the European identity document (e-ID) so much coveted by Brussels. Her colorful dresses and tropical dances are currently more impressive than her substantive cabinet work.
After nine years in the House of Representatives and a role as provincial administrator in Utrecht, Hanke Bruins Slot ended up at the Ministry of the Interior. The CDA minister is not particularly busy there: after all, the housing portfolio, which previously fell under the Minister of the Interior, went to Hugo de Jonge. What had to steer Bruins Slot in the right direction was the government’s response to the report on the slavery past. But after the plan for the apology was leaked, it descended into chaos. Deputy Prime Minister Kaag had to be flown in with Surinamese president Chan Santokhi to smooth out the folds.
There are also positive exceptions. Think of Dilan Yeşilgöz (VVD): she seemed lost as Secretary of State for Climate in the previous cabinet, but is now much more in her place as Minister of Justice and Security.
Party leaders busy putting out internal fires
At the CU they are adamant about it: the party leader is in the House of Representatives, not in the cabinet. After all, a leader can come out more fiercely in the Chamber. In addition, running a party is difficult to combine with another busy job, such as a ministerial position.
VVD leader Rutte has long been good at multitasking, but cracks are visible. VVD members are increasingly showing their teeth. The nitrogen rate and asylum policy are increasingly leading to resistance and commotion. Moreover, as prime minister, he becomes a personification of all the problems in the country because he has been there for so long.
The question remains with CDA member Wopke Hoekstra (Minister of Foreign Affairs) and D66 member Sigrid Kaag (Finance) whether their posts should not have been the other way around, as in the previous cabinet. But D66 wanted to claim Finance, even though Kaag might have done better at Foreign Affairs. For Hoekstra, the international mail and associated absence are causing problems for his party leadership. The CDA is less visible, and his party members in the cabinet do not take up their role in Hoekstra’s absence.
29 ministers, pleasure or burden?
Mark Rutte’s cabinets have been getting bigger over the years. And for Rutte IV, that was added to that: no less than 29 ministers are at the helm of the country (for comparison: in Rutte I there were twenty). The expansion of the cabinet would be necessary because there are so many problem files and several ministers in the previous cabinet dropped out exhausted.
But the question is whether the expansion of the cabinet has really helped. A minister who focuses specifically on one problem file appears to be far from a panacea for Housing (De Jonge), Stikstof (Van der Wal) or Supplements (De Vries).
In fact, the expansion of the cabinet sometimes causes delays. During the purchasing power crisis, there was confusion between Ministers Van Gennip and Schouten of Social Affairs about who was the first to raise the bar. After a difficult start, a historic billion-dollar package was finally put together.
At the Ministry of Agriculture, Van der Wal is at odds with both the current minister of agriculture Piet Adema and his predecessor Henk Staghouwer. And some files have to go through seven or eight ministers. It is not a success, the top of the cabinet has noted, with the endless coordination that, according to insiders, produces a lengthy mush of official prose instead of clear texts.
Legal mess
And no matter how many ministers there are, the good intentions of the cabinet are now also stranded in legal hair-splitting and lengthy procedures. Whether it concerns nitrogen, the surcharge affair, the claims handling and the repair of houses in Groningen, yes even the plan to reduce VAT on fruit and vegetables.
Sometimes it is the judge who calls a halt to the cabinet (nitrogen), at other times it is ordinary cabinet policy that dupes its own citizens (see the surcharge affair). Last week another harrowing example came to the table: 10,000 people appear to be living in poverty due to a flaw in the rules regarding allowances and benefits. And it has not been possible for years to find a solution for this group, because then other people will deteriorate again, Minister Carola Schouten (Poverty Policy) outlines the self-created quicksand in which the cabinet now finds itself.
Elephants in china shop
Nitrogen mediator Johan Remkes put his finger on the sore spot last year: “I see genuine despair in the eyes of reasonable people.” In doing so, he held up a mirror to the cabinet. He also sees that nitrogen must be strongly reduced, but lacks compassion in the implementation.
The yellow card that Remkes handed out goes to VVD minister Christianne van der Wal. Praised by parties such as GL and D66 for its straight back in the nitrogen dossier. Others see it as a stiff steamroller.
That sound can also be heard more and more about fellow party member Aukje de Vries, who has been put on the tough surcharge file. The knot she has to untangle is complex, but the rigid Frisian MPs lack empathy in the benefits affair and fire and vision when reforming the benefits system.
Helped by the punishment in the parliamentary elections, the cabinet is now increasingly aware that empathy plays a key role, certainly in complex dossiers. The fact that D66 State Secretary Hans Vijlbrief (Mining) is still standing upright, for example, while everything goes wrong with the handling of Groningen’s gas extraction, has everything to do with this, according to sources in The Hague. Despite the difficult course of events, many Groningen people walk away with him. He comes regularly and enjoys confidence. A capacity that fellow ministers can learn something from.