Ronald Plasterk to also lead next phase in government formation

Ronald Plasterk will also lead the next phase of the Cabinet formation process. After his work as the scout, he will immediately start working as an “informant.” A majority in the Tweede Kamer, the lower house of the Dutch parliament, agreed that he should lead the “short information round” he himself suggested with the PVV, VVD, NSC, and BBB. However, there was no unanimous support. Many parties are very concerned about possible haggling with the rule of law.

After the exploratory phase, Plasterk noted that there is a basis for negotiations between these parties but that NSC, in particular, has concerns about the legality of some of the PVV’s positions. According to him, the parties should first sit down in the coming weeks to discuss this further. The Tweede Kamer debated that advice extensively on Wednesday.

That will become “quarters with the rule of law,” fears a very critical Volt MP Marieke Koekkoek. According to Pieter Grinwis of the ChristenUnie, it should be “self-evident” that MPs respect fundamental rights. GroenLinks-PvdA leader Frans Timmermans also said he was “very surprised” that the parties even had to discuss this.

Geert Wilders (PVV), Dilan Yeşilgöz (VVD), Pieter Omtzigt (NSC), and Caroline van der Plas (BBB) did their best all day to remove their colleagues’ concerns. But they wholly canceled this out with a call on the Cabinet and Senate to wait until after their negotiations before considering the asylum distribution law, intended to better distribute asylum seekers across the country.”

“Constitutional vandalism,” sneered D66 leader Rob Jetten. Timmermans called it an insult to the Senate, “a co-legislator,” if the Tweede Kamer adopted this motion. He asked the submitting parties not to put the proposal to the vote before the outgoing Cabinet has given its opinion on it. They complied.

The fact that the motion did not come to a vote does not alter the fact that it immediately put relations in the new Tweede Kamer on edge. Whatever trust the four parties started to gain from the rest of the Kamer immediately disappeared after this action, Koekkoek expressed the lingering discomfort.