Dead and alive at the same time, the situation in which Rutte IV found himself this week was reminiscent of the famous thought experiment of the Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger. A cat sits in a box containing a tube of radioactive material for an hour. Whether a particle of that substance decays, and as a result a hammer in the box smashes a vial of poison and kills the cat, depends on chance. After an hour, the box may be opened again. Only then do you know: the cat is alive or not alive. But during that hour of waiting, the invisible cat is simultaneously in two states, Schrödinger argued: dead and alive.
In the coalition of Rutte IV, CDA and D66 are diametrically opposed to nitrogen. But that issue has been parked. So the cabinet can continue for the time being until the CDA asks for renegotiation of the nitrogen policy. Once that happens, her political life hangs by a thread again.
During the parliamentary debate on the results of the provincial elections, PVV leader Geert Wilders alluded to an impending cabinet fall on Wednesday. He saw a government squad “in an advanced state of decomposition,” he said. The open disagreement about nitrogen, which made visible that there is no longer unity in cabinet policy, means that Rutte IV has lost the confidence of most of the opposition. Even GroenLinks and PvdA, parties that often work constructively with the cabinet and are important for support in the new Senate, have withdrawn their confidence in the cabinet with a motion of no confidence. GroenLinks leader Jesse Klaver denounced Rutte’s policy of “passing on and laughing away”, Attje Kuiken (PvdA) sees a cabinet that performs “to increase every problem instead of solving it”.
Read also: Almost the entire opposition has lost confidence in the cabinet after a marathon debate
‘Government that delivers’
Rutte IV was not born out of love in 2022. After a formation of nine months after the parliamentary elections of March 2021, a record, the four parties continued together again. Nevertheless, the promises were in the coalition agreement of the end of 2021 big. Because Rutte III – also consisting of VVD, D66, CDA and ChristenUnie – had to resign because of the benefits scandal, the same four parties wanted to change course. The cabinet would work on “a government that is reliable and delivers […] and thus restores confidence”. Sharp, ambitious targets were formulated for major issues such as climate, nitrogen and housing. The coalition parties would show that the political center is once again taking responsibility and achieving results.
Almost a year and a half later, little is left of the “new impetus” that Rutte promised. The recovery operation for the victims of the allowances scandal is proceeding excruciatingly slowly, the climate measures are lagging behind the ambitions, and the search for sufficient reception places for asylum seekers is difficult. After the resounding victory of the BoerBurgerBeweging in the provincial elections, Rutte IV now has an existential problem: the coalition parties no longer agree on the goal of halving nitrogen emissions by 2030. The CDA wants to renegotiate that year, but only when the provincial formations are ready and an agricultural agreement has been reached.
Months of uncertainty about the nitrogen policy threatens. Rutte tried to convince the House that you can still “accelerate” paused policy. But where the prime minister managed to bluff parliament often enough with his own logic and verbal agility in the past, this time he did not succeed. The opposition simply no longer believes him.
Making problems small
Rutte tried to minimize the problems in his cabinet. He does not want to know about a crisis, it was at most “unusual” that the CDA no longer fully supports government policy. The prime minister referred to the renegotiations between VVD and PvdA during Rutte II about the income-related health care premium and the criminalization of illegality. These were sensitive issues, but not policy-determining themes such as nitrogen, which involves tens of billions.
The polarization paradox: those who do not dare to compromise cause more polarization
The prime minister had to admit on Thursday after the cabinet meeting that his cabinet is performing “moderately”. Rutte keeps repeating that things are going well, such as the sharp increase in defense investments because of the war in Ukraine and the measures taken by the cabinet to dampen the consequences of the increased energy prices. Rutte is right that the cabinet acted quickly, but these were also politically uncontroversial matters that could be settled quickly. Rutte IV does not perform well on dossiers that do require sharp choices and decisiveness, such as nitrogen and surcharges.
‘Think out of the box if necessary’
Illustrative of this was the letter to parliament that the cabinet sent last Friday. It was only after consultations spread over three days, by no less than eight ministers, including Rutte and the three deputy prime ministers, that Rutte’s ministry came to interpret the results of the elections.
It led to a letter of four pages of A4 in which, in addition to a summary of recently published advisory reports on gaps in society, there are mainly vague promises. For example, it says that the cabinet wants to speed up the recovery operation around the allowances by “if necessary out of the box thinking”. A meaningless text with no concrete points for improvement.
Rutte said on Thursday that the cabinet cannot solve the problems of the Netherlands in a few weeks. It fails to recognize that many files have been waiting for a solution for years . The surcharge scandal has been going on since 2017, Groningen residents have been waiting for years for their homes to be strengthened or for the ‘debt of honor’ to be paid to the province due to the earthquake damage. The nitrogen crisis has held the country hostage since the far-reaching ruling of the Council of State in 2019, which has also brought construction projects to a standstill. The previous and current cabinets have talked about nitrogen for years, and have made creative calculations, but have barely pursued a policy that reduces nitrogen.
2030, 2028, 2025
Johan Remkes, the most sought-after problem solver at the Binnenhof, seemed to have found the workable solution last year after expert consultation with politicians and farmers. 2030 was no longer “sacred”, as the CDA wanted, in 2025 and 2028 it would be measured whether the year is feasible for an area. The fact that the CDA now rejects this hard-won compromise raises the question among coalition partners whether the party is still that reliable governing party.
Volt party chairman Laurens Dassen explained the coalition problems this week with the “polarization paradox”. He sees a cabinet that no longer dares to stand for political compromises and pushes real choices forward, which in turn leads to dissatisfaction. „Consequence: more polarization through the politics of stagnation, rather than less.”
Dassen’s paradox ties in nicely with the list of no less than eleven ‘deeper-lying paradoxical patterns’ that professors, led by Emeritus Professor of Parliamentary History Carla van Baalen, formulated in their recently published evaluation of the cabinet formation of 2021 and 2022. Van Baalen saw, for example, that the ‘context paradox’ also paralyzes politics. “The political context was used as an ‘excuse’ by politicians to explain the difficult progress, while sometimes they had (partly) created it themselves.”
The next test case in this area awaits in a few weeks, when the cabinet has to decide on additional climate measures from the official report Sharp goals, sharp choices. To achieve the ambition of 60 percent less CO2emissions in 2030, according to the researchers, “far-reaching”, less voluntary climate policy is needed and the reduction of livestock “inevitable”. „No pain, no gain”, they write.
Is Rutte IV still capable of making these kinds of fundamental choices? This Good Friday, the ministers were traditionally guests at various places in the country at performances of the Matthew Passion. Not often did inspiration for a political resurrection seem so desperately needed.
Weekend 24-25 Lessons from Laarbeek for The Hague.