Solution Opposition And Government Within Reach

Prime Minister Mark Rutte and PvdA leader Diederik Samsom are very optimistic that  a solution, to get a majority in the Senate, will be found in a few days.

The negotiations, this time without GroenLinks, continued on Wednesday. In the afternoon it were the financial specialists of the negotiation partners who met with the minister of Finance. In the evening the group leaders, the Prime Minister and the Vice Prime Minister joined the negotiations.

According to Rutte it is a very difficult process. “There are many complex issues to be solved but we do it step by step. The positive thing is that all negotiators are very motivated. So, I think we will find a solution with this group.”

Pechtold (D66) told the press after last night’s meeting that there are still a lot of calculations to be made but “I think that we will make much progress in the coming days”.

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Solution with D66, SGP and ChristenUnie?

At first hand people would not think that the small christian parties, D66, the social democrats and the liberals would come to a solution. But there are some reasons why it could work.

Reason 1 is that the parties also could come to an agreement about the Housing Agreement earlier this year. If you have done such an exercise together before you might have a chance for a second time to find a solution.

The second reason is that both D66, SGP and ChristenUnie have a high level attitude of responsibility. D66 is in general positive about the direction of the government and SGP and ChristenUnie are always willing to ‘better the position for the Dutch people’.

Another reason for a early solution is that GroenLinks has disappeared from the negotiation table. GroenLinks not only had problems with the 6 billion cuts of the government, but was also on many issues an opponent to the other parties.

He fourth reason is that the remaining negotiating parties have a clear number of discussion points. More money for education, the family and care, less tax on work, less cuttings for ill people, defense and the intelligence agencies. They have still some opposing ideas of course, but for each of the parties the government can reach out a hand.

The last reason is that the negotiations have now gone so far and discussion partners have left the negotiations, that everybody expects a solution from the remaining group. There is no room anymore for the government to switch to other parties, the three remaining parties are necessary for a majority in the House. It is now the time to finalize the negotiations.