Dutch newspapers expect hard days ahead in formation of new cabinet

Forming a new government with the election results as they now stand will be quite a chore, the Dutch newspapers expect on Thursday morning, RTL Nieuws reports.

Newspaper Trouw at least sees a silver lining on the horizon. While the political landscape is now even more fragmented, as expected, the fact that the VVD won so clearly at least ensures some clarity in the coming weeks, according to the newspaper. The VVD clearly has the ball in its court and there will at least be no chaos, Trouw expects.

AD points out that first the CDA and now the PvdA lost heavily in elections after ruling with Mark Rutte and his VVD. This brings up the question of who will dare to step into a cabinet with Rutte this time? Seeing that ruling with the VVD seems to have a high price tag, AD expects that "the new partners will make high demands".

According to the Volkskrant, the CDA and D66 will be willing to work with the VVD. Both parties walked away with more seats than in the previous election and both indicated in their election campaigns that they want to be part of the government. For the fourth place, the Volkskrant expects that the VVD will rather approach small Christian parties than GroenLinks. The Christian parties are considered reliable partners and supported a number of VVD policies over the past years. But the problem in that is that both ChristenUnie and SGP are strongly opposed to assisted suicide at the end of a full life, something the D66 has been fighting for for years.

The Telegraaf predicts that the government formation will take a long time, given the fact that it is expected to be difficult and this is only the second time the Tweede Kamer [lower house of Dutch parliament] is forming a government without input from the King. "A chess game that may well take months", the newspaper writes.