Cabinet with Green, Labour parties one step closer: report

The VVD and D66 seem to be heading for cabinet negotiations with the CDA and left-wing parties PvdA and GroenLinks. The left-wing parties said they were willing to join as one negotiating team - so without seconds - and that may be acceptable for the VVD and CDA, sources from around the formation process said to newspaper AD.

Usually, a political party will join the cabinet formation process with two negotiators. For the VVD, for example, that's party leader Mark Rutte and second Sophie Hermans. The D66 has leader Sigrid Kaag and second Rob Jetten. The left-wing parties said they were willing to join as a team of GroenLinks leader Jesse Klaver and PvdA leader Lilianne Ploumen, according to the newspaper.

The VVD and CDA found this reassuring that the left-wing duo will not "over-top each other with left-wing plans", AD's sources said.

Until recently, the two right-wing parties were very hesitant about teaming up with GroenLinks and PvdA. In the months after the parliamentary elections on March 17, Rutte repeatedly said that he had no appetite for two left-wing parties in a cabinet. CDA leader Wopke Hoekstra said that collaborating with PvdA and GroenLinks "is the least logical in terms of content".

But the PvdA and GroenLinks remained firm in their stance that they will govern together or not at all - to prevent left-wing plans from being drowned by the two right-wing parties. And that realization now seems to have penetrated with the VVD and CDA - over the past days, neither Hoekstra nor Rutte said anything negative about the left-wing duo, according to the newspaper.

And meanwhile, D66 leader Sigrid Kaag repeated that her party does not want to rule with the ChristenUnie again. In the outgoing Rutte III cabinet, the D66 and ChristenUnie clashed heavily, especially on medical ethical issues like euthanasia at the end of a complete life. Annoyed Gert-Jan Segers said on Tuesday that his party is feeling very unwanted in this process.

On Thursday or Friday it should become clear which parties will enter the next step in the formation process - actually starting negotiations. "Obviously, this phase is intended to be concluded with an advice on which parties will negotiate a cabinet," Rutte said on Wednesday. "That will happen in the coming days." The expectation is that informateur Mariette Hamer will present her advice on Friday or Monday.