Labour wants to merge with Green party after elections

PvdA leader Diederik Samsom wants his party to merge with GroenLinks after the upcoming elections. "Then you can be the biggest in one go", he said in response to a plea from GroenLinks leader Jesse Klaver that the left-wing parties in the Netherlands work together, the Volkskrant reports.

Klaver called for "a progressive collaboration" in Eindhoven on Monday. He wants GroenLinks, PvdA, SP and D66 to already commit to forming a coalition after the electioin. This will prevent the VVD from ruling again after the election. "Without the VVD we can together form the heart of the new government", he said, according to AD. "Rutte needs us, but we don't need Rutte."

Samsom thinks that fusing his party with GroenLinks only makes sense. Content is no problem, according to him. "The similarities are enormous. In our electioni programs you can get 20 points that we can do together." he said, according to the Volkskrant. And in the current fragmented political situation, merging would make them the biggest party after the election. Both the PvdA and GroenLinks currently have between 10 and 15 parliamentary seats. 

The PvdA leader added that Klaver is the one who stopped extensive cooperation at previous occassions. "I had with Bram van Ojik (Klaver's predecessor, ed) an agreement that the PvdA and GroenLInks will together form a faction after this election", he said, according to the newspaper. "We would have announced it during the campaign. It was a done deal, also because Van Ojik already knew he was going to pass the baton. But he was enthusiastic. When Klaver took over, it was off the table." He does not believe that Klaver will make the step to merge. "Jesse wants to achieve something big on his own."

A spokesperson for Klaver denied this statement to the Volkskrant. "It's simply not true. There never was a deal between Samsom and Van Ojik. 

The SP also did not respond positively to Klaver's call for a pre-emptive coalition. SP leader Emile Roemer points out that the PvdA went directly to the VVD for a coalition after the previous elections. "We are not going to help the PvdA launder their right wing government policies of the past four years", the Volkskrant quotes him saying. "Let the voters decide not only on future promises, but also on past actions. Right wing policy does not help you get a majority, that's what we stand for. If others keep to it, then left will do very well."