Rutte IV’s team: who stood out? Who remained invisible? And who will be featured this year?

The Rutte IV cabinet took office exactly one year ago on Tuesday. After the stiff formation in 2021, the restart of Rutte III – in the same composition of VVD, D66, CDA and ChristenUnie – resembled a marriage of convenience. Relations between the leaders were difficult, and voter confidence was low. And then the war in Ukraine had yet to begin, with quite far-reaching consequences for the Dutch economy and society.

How did the ministers of Rutte IV survive the first year? Who stood out? Who not? And who will in the near future come into view?

Most Outstanding Leaders

As the longest-serving prime minister Mark Rutte We are used to strong criticism: from the opposition, opinion formers, protesters and from anonymous haters on social media. In 2022, a new form of resistance was added: that from our own circle. That was the first time since his premiership began more than twelve years ago. Critical VVD members turned against the nitrogen policy of Rutte’s cabinet and the mandatory distribution of asylum reception facilities among municipalities. Local VVD administrators also got involved. According to part of their own supporters, Rutte has listened too much to D66 and Rutte IV is pursuing a too progressive, left-wing policy.

It is no coincidence that, after Rutte, the two ministers most often in the news in 2022 deal precisely with these two policy areas – nitrogen and asylum. Christianne van der Wal-Zeggelinkthe Minister for Nature and Nitrogen and Eric van der Burg, the State Secretary for Asylum and Migration. They visibly struggled with their difficult portfolios and engaged in fierce debates with the House.

An additional complication is that they too belong to the VVD and therefore also have to endure resistance from their own voters and party members. Van der Wal was also openly attacked by the cabinet in August. CDA leader Wopke Hoekstra tried to undermine its nitrogen plans.

Sigrid Kaag (D66) had wanted to become a strict Minister of Finance. Shortly after taking office, she hinted that the continuous compensation of citizens and companies, as had happened during the corona crisis, could not continue forever. It turned out differently. Energy prices, already high before she took office, went through the roof as a result of the Russian war in Ukraine. Moreover, it turned out that the economy was so healthy that the extra government debt of the corona years quickly decreased.

Compensation schemes were introduced again. Kaag thus became what she initially did not want to be: an extremely generous Minister of Finance. In 2023, she recently promised, things will really be different. She also has another ambition: to take the lead in drawing up new European budget rules.

minister Conny Bright (Public Health and Sport, VVD) was in the news for all the wrong reasons: the World Cup in Qatar and its predecessor’s ‘face mask deal’ Hugo Young. While her real mission, improving care for the elderly, is great. The aging population is increasing, because the youngest of the baby boom generation have also retired, and personnel shortages in the healthcare sector are large. Home care and general practitioners are overloaded, as are nursing homes.

The strategy presented by Helder in July further focuses on the ‘self-reliance’ of the elderly: “self if possible, at home if possible, digital if possible.” That means video calls with the district nurse and a sensor that sounds the alarm if an elderly person has fallen. Nurses, carers and doctors are critical.

Who did stand out for the content: Deputy Prime Minister Carol Schouten (Poverty Policy, Participation and Pensions, ChristenUnie). When she stood on the platform a year ago, she had no idea that her poverty portfolio would be so much in the spotlight due to raging inflation.

In addition, she piloted one of the largest post-war system reforms through the House of Representatives: a new pension system. In the debates on this subject, Schouten was able to answer the most technical, detailed questions, sometimes from memory. She did not do so with fire, but calmly and matter-of-factly. This paid off in broad support: the opposition parties PvdA, GroenLinks, SGP and Volt also voted in favour.

Least notable ministers

Christophe van der Maat (VVD) was an unknown face in political The Hague a year ago. And that is still a bit the State Secretary of Defense. Nevertheless, the former deputy from Brabant has not been idle. To solve the serious personnel shortage at the Ministry of Defense – 9,000 vacancies – he wants to make the work more attractive: women are given priority if they are equally qualified, wages are going up, and young people can do an internship for a year.

Van der Maat also has to do something about the defective equipment and the poorly maintained property. The armed forces are in such a deplorable state that he was shocked during working visits. Waiting was not an option: due to the outbreak of war in Ukraine, Van der Maat had to order extra munitions, fighter planes and drones more quickly.

Water, roads, the train and Schiphol – the two ministers who are politically responsible for these essential needs of modern man have been remarkably little in the news: Mark Harders (VVD) and Vivianne Heijnen (CDA), Minister and State Secretary of Infrastructure & Water Management respectively. It was not until the end of November that the duo came up with their policy letter about how they see sensible and sustainable water and soil management. This is an inseparable part of climate and nature policy in the coming decades.

In addition to major investment plans in roads and rail, there is an immense amount of overdue maintenance. The recent acute closures of the A7 near Sneek and the Nelson Mandela bridge in Zoetermeer made it painfully clear that the state of the infrastructure is problematic. The Court of Auditors has been pointing this out for years.

Also Aukje de Vries (VVD) has a chance to win the trophy for the least visible cabinet member. But for a State Secretary on the subject of Supplements, that is rather a good sign. The recovery operation for the Supplements affair is not going entirely smoothly. The complex handling of thousands of individual cases consumes time and three ombudsmen issued a warning at the end of December NRC that creditors threaten to seize the compensation for children. At the same time, many tips on tax and benefits fraud remain on the shelf. De Vries has already pointed out that even claims handling is in danger of becoming new prey for fraudsters. In 2023 she will also have to navigate between the soft and the hard hand.

Predecessor Alexandra van Huffelen As State Secretary for the Benefits dossier, he grew into one of the familiar faces of the government team. At least, among the victims. Videos continuously appeared in which Van Huffelen informed them when there was news to report about the damage repair – and that was rarely good news. Now Van Huffelen (D66), responsible for relations with the Caribbean part of the kingdom and digitization, is virtually invisible.

Nevertheless, she also now receives a lot of attention with part of her portfolio. Together with minister Mickey Adriaansens (Economic Affairs, VVD) she is responsible for the European digital identity. This should make it easier for EU citizens to open a bank account or collect a doctor’s prescription outside their own country, for example. A large part of the House of Representatives is skeptical about it: are the systems secure enough? And won’t the Netherlands again lose sovereignty to Brussels?

Also Secretary of State Maarten van Ooyen (Public Health, ChristenUnie) was not very visible. While the youngest minister of Rutte IV (32 years old) is responsible for themes that regularly make the news: youth care, homelessness and lifestyle and prevention. Youth care in particular requires a lot of attention: it is bogged down due to a combination of few staff and many registrations, even for minor requests for help. As a result, costs add up quickly. For more than a year, Van Ooijen has been negotiating with the municipalities about more efficient youth care. He hoped to reach an agreement before Christmas, but failed to do so. Main bottleneck: money. Van Ooijen wants to cut costs by 1 billion euros immediately. Municipalities doubt how realistic that amount is.

Who will we hear from?

Green industrial politics is hip, but that’s on Mickey Adriaansens (Economic Affairs, VVD). It is not the coalition’s fault: not only D66 and ChristenUnie, CDA and VVD have also embraced climate policy and there is more than 30 billion euros in a climate fund. A large part of this is intended to help make the industry greener. However, that does not go smoothly. Adriaansens has so far only been able to make agreements with three of the twenty major emitters. She wants that arranged this year.

If someone in Rutte IV is bursting with plans, it is Hugo Young (CDA). The Minister of Housing got off to a good start in his new post: a National Housing and Building Agenda, six policy programmes, better rent protection, concrete construction agreements. In the coming year, De Jonge’s enthusiasm will be tested. The provinces in particular stand out in this respect. They have agreed with the minister to build more than 900,000 homes and will have to show this year how they want to integrate infrastructure, homes, greenery, agriculture and energy into their territory. It remains to be seen whether the provincial councils that will take office after the elections in March feel the same way as De Jonge.

Teachers are enthusiastic about the education ministers, Dennis Wiersma (VVD) and Robert Dijkgraaf (D66). They talk contagiously about the importance of good education and therefore of good teachers. But there is a screaming teacher shortage and the average level of education is falling. In April, the cabinet earmarked an extra 990 million euros to make working at a primary school as financially attractive as working at a secondary school.

The quality of the universities has also come under pressure in the past fifteen years. The number of students grew, from 165,000 to 328,000 in 2020, but budgets did not double. Dijkgraaf received an extra 10 billion euros in the coalition agreement to reduce the pressure on students and teachers.

Hans Vijlbrief (D66), State Secretary for Mining, has put a lot of energy into Groningen in the past year. Every month he traveled to Loppersum to talk to those affected by the earthquakes. At the parliamentary inquiry into gas extraction, he said that he is “furious” at NAM, which does not want to pay all the bills. An important moment for him – and for the entire cabinet – will be the presentation of the report of the committee of inquiry in February. It is certain that it will contain a harsh judgment on his predecessors. The question is whether he should take responsibility for that. Vijlbrief has been light-hearted about it so far: “I just do my job, if the Chamber no longer has confidence in me, they will send me home.”

Karen van Gennip (Social Affairs, CDA) was best known for a statement in the AD. French young people from problem areas are welcome in the Dutch catering industry and horticulture, she said. In the months to come, we’ll be hearing more about her plans — which are ambitious to say the least. For example, Van Gennip wants to make childcare almost free for all working parents from 2025. Difficult, because she must try to prevent even longer waiting lists from arising. Just as tough are the rules around work. Van Gennip wants to make it clearer to companies when they can hire a self-employed person without employees, and for which activities someone must be employed.

The man with the fewest flying hours in the cabinet will have a tough job in the coming weeks. It is on Peter Adema (ChristenUnie), who succeeded the prematurely departed Agriculture Minister Henk Staghouwer at the beginning of October, to close a deal with the agricultural sector. That agricultural agreement will have to clear the way for two other major issues of the cabinet that have stalled: the nitrogen file of Christianne van der Wal and the housing shortage. Without a beckoning future perspective, conventional farmers will not want to cooperate with the government’s strict nitrogen targets. And without those strict nitrogen targets there is (legally) no room for the ambitious building plans of Hugo Young.

Illustrations Rick van Schagen