D66 won't rule with ChristenUnie, Kaag says as formation talks resume

D66 leader Sigrid Kaag will not form a cabinet with Gert-Jan Seger's ChristenUnie, she said in an interview published by newspaper AD just hours before formation talks were to resume. On Monday morning, Kaag and VVD leader Mark Rutte will meet with informateur Mariette Hamer for the first time since the summer recess.

"The helm has to change. It really has to be different. You do that with a different composition of the cabinet, with different choices and priorities," Kaag said about not working with the ChristenUnie again. Both parties are in the caretaker Rutte III cabinet. Kaag stressed that the D66 "thought this through carefully" over the past weeks.

She said the party "gained the confidence and vote of the voters because we said we want to do it differently". "And that means that you get other parties involved."

Before the summer, the D66 suggested a five-party coalition of VVD, D66, CDA, PvdA and GroenLinks, and Kaag still stands for that suggestion. But Rutte did not seem to like the idea much.

The D66 and ChristenUnie mainly clash on medical-ethical issues, the expansion of the euthanasia law to to allow euthanasia at the end of a complete life in particular. The D66 has been a champion for this proposal since the start, but the Christian party is firmly against it.

Over the past weeks, the D66 and VVD wrote a first draft for a coalition agreement, in an attempt to get other parties to join based on content.