D66 Speaks Alone With Governement

On Wednesday evening D66 was invited for a discussion with the Prime Minister, the Vice Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance. No details were mentioned by any of the negotiators. After the one-on-one discussion between Minister of Finance Jeroen Dijsselbloem and the party leaders of the constructive opposition parties plus 50Plus, the minister sent a new proposal to each of them. After the discussions the opposition parties were still negative, in the way that they thought that too little was proposed by the government. CDA leader Buma mentioned that if the proposal would not change more then talking any further would not be worthwhile. In the evening D66 was invited to talk with Mark Rutte, Lodewijk Asscher and Jeroen Dijsselbloem in the office of the Prime Minister. For D66, Alexander Pechtold and the financial specialist of D66, Wouter Koolmees, attended the meeting. The meeting started at 9.30 pm. None of the negotiators has revealed anything what was discussed in ‘the tower’. The only thing D66 let know is that it is out of the question that D66 would join the coalition parties. Nevertheless is the invitation a sign that the government and D66 have come closer to each other. Most probably they are discussing some accelerations of reforms that D66 really wants. To make this possible means that the Social Agreement has to be changed. A sign that the discussion is moving in that way, is that Asscher seems to have contacted the Unions frequently over the last days.