The opposition leader showed no mercy. He saw a prime minister who, although he had ruled successfully for a while, now set up a task force for every problem. A prime minister who ‘goes to study for a year in the middle of a crisis and then comes up with proposals’. He therefore simply put the question on the table: ‘Are you the Prime Minister who wants to lead this country out of this crisis by taking the decisions yourself at the front, with the flag in front? Or will you continue with the ill-fated plan of delegating everything away?’
When Mark Rutte subsequently submitted the inevitable motion of no confidence against Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende in September 2009, he could not have imagined in his wildest dreams that he himself would be the longest-reigning Dutch Prime Minister thirteen years later. He would not have expected that his own reproaches would return to him like a boomerang.
Place in history book
Of course it is a milestone that Mark Rutte reached on Tuesday. His place in the history books can no longer escape his notice. Moreover, the parliamentary historians may be more lenient on him than the mood in the country at the moment indicates. Someday there will be room again to let thoughts go back to the political flexibility with which, in times of unprecedented political fragmentation, he managed to forge all those unlikely coalitions with which he guided the national government through major administrative crises.
He was one of the few European heads of government who stood at the helm in the wake of the banking crisis and then won the elections. His first years were characterized by daring but much-needed interventions in public spending – the state pension, mortgage interest deduction and long-term care – which had indeed been postponed too long by Balkenenende. After the MH17 tragedy and at the start of the corona crisis, he proved himself a worthy and beloved national predecessor.
Political feeling
Rutte himself, however, has enough political feeling to realize that that legacy is in danger of being tainted by the turn his premiership has taken. And not so much because of the permanent crisis of confidence with the almost entire opposition that has haunted him since last year. Even more painful is the lethargy into which the government threatens to sink, just as the country is struggling with mounting tensions, sometimes resulting in social disruption.
He promised an effective and decisive government in 2009. Strong and lean, with a maximum of eight ministers. After the endless formation of 2021, there are now twenty. And yet every essential problem, from the asylum soap to the nitrogen malaise, is delegated to provinces, municipalities and security regions. Or, if they don’t come out either, to another committee, envoy or mediator. The inability of the national government to at least deal with the self-inflicted catastrophes of recent years in an orderly manner reinforces the image of a Rutte era that threatens to end in lethargy.
The prime minister only talks about his plans for the future in a very select circle. Enough VVD members who think that he also wants to get Rutte V on the podium, if only to prove that he is really virtually unbeatable in election campaigns.
It is to be hoped for the country that he will soon find some of the energy from those early years. Otherwise, what he himself said to Balkenende at the time applies: ‘We cannot govern the Netherlands that way.’
The position of the newspaper is expressed in the Volkskrant Commentaar. It is created after a discussion between the commentators and the editor-in-chief.