Informateur says Cabinet formation is around the corner

The formation of a new ruling coalition led by the VVD and D66 will be finished in “the foreseeable future”, Informateur Mariette Hamer said in a letter to the Speaker of the Tweede Kamer Vera Bergkamp. Hamer was appointed in May to assist with finding a path to a new ruling coalition in the Netherlands. After weeks of silence during the vacation period, Bergkamp requested an update on the progress in the Cabinet formation on Wednesday.

Mark Rutte from the VVD and Sigrid Kaag from D66 will step into talks with the CDA, GroenLinks, PvdA and the ChristenUnie on Monday to discuss “the building blocks for a possible coalition agreement”.

“My prediction is that talks have progressed far enough for the other four intended parties to be involved early next”, Hamer wrote in the letter on Thursday. “Depending on the course of these talks, it should be clear in the foreseeable future with which parties further negotiations can be held.”

Hamer tasked Rutte and Kaag with writing a draft for a coalition agreement after the two winners for the elections in March were not able to come to an understanding at the end of June. The other parties will be able to decide at the beginning of next week if they wish to be a part of the coalition. Whether the parties will be invited to the negotiations by Hamer individually or collectively was not yet known.