Following the 2006 Dutch general election, held on November 22, a process of cabinet formation started, involving negotiations about which coalition partners to form a common programme of policy and to divide the posts in cabinet. On February 22, 2007 it resulted in the formation of the Fourth Balkenende cabinet.
Background
Election results
The Dutch House of Representatives has 150 seats. In the 2006 elections the coalition partners of the cabinet in power before the fall of that cabinet earlier that year lost a total of 12 seats. Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) lost three out of 44, the right-wing liberal People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) lost six out of 28 and the centre-left liberal D66 lost three of six. Nevertheless, the CDA remained the largest party in the parliament with 41 seats. The main opposition party, the social-democratic Labour Party (PvdA) lost nine of its 42 seats; getting 33 seats in the new parliament. The largest winner in seats was the Socialist Party (SP), which won 16 seats, increasing from nine to 25 seats. Two previously unrepresented parties were also successful; the far right-wing Party for Freedom (PVV) of former VVD MP Geert Wilders, winning nine seats, and the animal-rights Party for the Animals, winning two seats. The social, and orthodox Protestant, ChristianUnion (CU) doubled its seats from three to six. GreenLeft (GL) dropped from eight to seven seats, while the orthodox Reformed Political Reformed Party (SGP) remained stable with two seats.
Caretaker cabinet The cabinet fell because D66 stepped out. The resulting Balkenende III cabinet no longer had a majority in parliament. Like any minority cabinet it had to negotiate with parties that were not member of the governing coalition for a majority of its bills, including the budgets. As is conventional, just before the elections the cabinet officially became a caretaker cabinet, with limited powers.
On November 30, 2006 the new parliament was sworn in, including several members of the current demissionair cabinet (Balkenende, Verdonk, van der Hoeven, Wijn, van Geel, Kamp, Remkes among others). Because of the election results, this House of Representatives had a majority of parties that opposed the course of the third Balkenende cabinet on important issues. One important election issue was an amnesty for a specific group of asylum seekers. This group originally of 26,000 and later 38,000 people had been in an administrative process since 2001, many of their children were raised exclusively in the Netherlands. The Minister for Integration and Immigration Rita Verdonk was currently looking into each of these dossiers to assess their future: either an expulsion or permanent residence. On December 1 the new House of Representatives adopted a motion in favour of amnestying this group. Balkenende reacted with annoyance as he stated that this ad hoc left wing coalition (including PvdA and SP) was no good basis for negotiations for a stable government. On December 5, the cabinet announced that it refused to execute this motion. It had three reasons for this: first, it claimed that a parliament which deals with a caretaker cabinet cannot demand that cabinet to implement new policy; second, it argued that a general amnesty would only attract more asylum seekers and it also raised several questions on which specific groups of asylum seekers should be amnestied and what the legal consequences would be for other groups not included in the amnesty. Minister Verdonk did announce that the expulsion would be suspended until the next parliamentary debate. A majority in the House of Representatives now proposed stopping the expulsion of asylum seekers until the formation talks were finished and allowing the formation talks to solve this issue; again the minister refused to execute this. On December 13, the House of Representatives decided to respond to this unwillingness with a motion of no confidence specifically aimed at Minister Verdonk. The leader of the VVD, Mark Rutte announced that if Minister Verdonk were forced to leave the cabinet all VVD ministers would leave, leaving only seven CDA ministers in the cabinet. On December 14, the cabinet held a meeting on how to respond to this motion: it found the solution in a small reshuffle of portfolios between Verdonk and Ernst Hirsch Ballin, the Minister of Justice, who became responsible for migration, while Verdonk became responsible for youth criminality. Hirsch Ballin could then partially execute the motion of the House of Representatives for a temporary stop in expulsion, and the VVD would be allowed to voice its opposition to this decision, breaking the principle that cabinets speak with one voice.
Information rounds On 24 and 25 November the chairs of parliamentary parties of the House of Representatives gave advice to the Queen on who should be appointed informateur and who should be involved in the first information talks. Sometimes the information and formation is fairly straightforward. However, after the November 2006 elections an elongated and complicated information and formation period is foreseen by most commentators.
An extra complicating factor is that, provincial elections will be held in March 2007, only four months after the general election. These are also indirect elections for the Senate and any coalition will be stronger if it has a majority in both chambers. However, with many voters afloat, the result for those elections might be significantly different from these general elections. This is even more the case since disagreement with any formed coalition cabinet may directly reflect upon the results in that upcoming election.
Some politicians have already expressed their views on what the options should be if it is impossible to forge a CDA-PvdA-SP cabinet. Prominent VVD-members Gerrit Zalm and Atzo Nicolaï proposed a parliamentary minority cabinet; while Party for the Animals leader Marianne Thieme indicated that she preferred a minority PvdA-SP-GL cabinet which may be supported by several environmentalist, liberal and social parties. This would be a novum in Dutch politics. Nicolaï stated that a minority cabinet would be the most democratic option because for each proposed law a proposal-specific majority has to be gathered for it to pass the chamber vote.
Exploratory information rounds The CDA offered to provide the informateur which should explore as many possible coalitions as possible. The PvdA proposed that someone unconnected to a political party should provide the informateur, and that the first negotiations should be focussed on the SP besides the CDA who won the elections. The PvdA has stated it doesn't want to form a coalition without the SP. GreenLeft also advised that SP should be involved and recommended Doekle Terpstra, former chair of the Christian trade union CNV as informateur. The SP advised the Queen to appoint D66 Minister of State Hans van Mierlo as informateur and examine the possibilities for a SP, PvdA and CDA coalition. The VVD, D66 and ChristianUnion gave the advice to appoint a CDA informateur. The SGP proposed a coalition between the CDA, PvdA and ChristianUnion, explicitly suggesting CDA member Rein Jan Hoekstra as the informateur who was involved as informateur in the 2003 Dutch cabinet formation. In the late afternoon of 25 November 2006, Queen Beatrix appointed Rein Jan Hoekstra as informateur.
Hoekstra had his first discussion with the larger parties on November 28. He held talks with the smaller parties the next day. Rouvoet, of the ChristianUnion, made clear that a cabinet of CDA-PvdA-SP looks like the most obvious coalition. Subsequently, Hoekstra continued his talks with a CDA-PvdA-SP coalition in mind .
After introductory talks on December 6 between Marijnissen (SP) and Balkenende (CDA), it was acknowledged that the formation of an CDA-SP-PvdA cabinet would be difficult as their viewpoints are far apart. Both of them also shared the opinion that the balance in this coalition may, with the largest, centre oriented, party (CDA) being smaller than the combined two leftwing parties (SP-PvdA), complicate the formation of such a cabinet On December 8 the informateur announced a brief postponement in the negotiations as a result of an apparent stalemate. The PvdA insisted on the SP as a coalition partner but SP and CDA agreed that the two parties had little in common especially on issues such as distribution of income, military peacekeeping missions one of them Task Force Uruzgan and European integration. At the same time it is expected that CDA would prefer participation of CU over SP. Balkenende gaat Bos het hof maken December 8, 2006 De Volkskrant Link Informateur neemt denkpauze www.nu.nl December 8, 2006 Link But if the PvdA would enter a government with SP in the opposition, it might lose even more seats to that party in the next elections.
On December 11 Hoekstra started a new information round without SP participation after consulting with Balkenende, Bos and Marijnissen. The parties involved agreed that the differences between CDA and SP were too large. Marijnissen did not express regrets as he expects to be involved again in a later stage in the formation a possible PvdA, SP, GreenLeft coalition. Hoekstra will now consult with all the parliamentary group representatives in order to identify a suitable SP replacement, which according to analysts will be ChristianUnion or GreenLeft SP valt af in kabinetsformatie www.nu.nl Link Haagse krabbendans NRC Handelsblad Link or both.RTL 4 News on December 11 was the first to suggest a left-right balanced CDA, PvdA, CU, GL coalion
On December 12 Wouter Bos expressed his doubts whether further discussions would be fruitful as in his view CDA was not prepared to change course. In his words he did not intent to "fall in the same trap" as in the 2003 Dutch cabinet formation. He suggested that negotiations from now on should be of more substance and with additional informateurs. Bos praat pas over coalities als CDA beweegt De Volkskrant Dec. 12. 2006 Link Femke Halsema (GL) on December 13 also walked away from a possible coalition with GL and PvdA.Ook Halsema wil niet met Bos regeren Elsevier 13 December 2006 Link She had three reasons for doing so: the differences between CDA and GL on economic, environmental and cultural issues; the fact that all three parties lost seats in the elections; and the fact that the GreenLeft as smallest party of the three would be unlikely to get any substantial concessions from the CDA and the PvdA. By 17 December it had become clear that at this stage in the formation the combination CDA-PvdA-CU is the most likely. Hoekstra finished his mission on the exploratory information round.
Second information round