Coalition leaders meeting about Prime Minister today; 5 weeks to put together Cabinet

The leaders of the PVV, VVD, NSC, and BBB will meet with formateur Richard van Zwol today about the Prime Minister of the future Cabinet. In this next step of the Cabinet formation process, Van Zwol has five weeks to put the new Cabinet together.

Typically, the future Prime Minister forms the Cabinet—in recent years, always the leader of the largest party. But because the four parties have decided that their leaders will remain in parliament, PVV leader Geert Wilders has to look for a new candidate for Prime Minister.

The issue of the Prime Minister has become urgent after Ronald Plasterk announced that he was not available for the position. It was an open secret that the PVV wanted to nominate him. Plasterk announced on Monday that he was not available for premiership due to reports questioning his integrity. The former PvdA Minister is under investigation for possible patent malpractice.

It will be difficult for formateur Van Zwol to start his job as long as it is unclear who will become Prime Minister. The Prime Minister must lead the Cabinet and will certainly want to have a say in the choice of Ministers. Wilders wanted to be Prime Minister himself, but the NSC and VVD opposed it.

The Tweede Kamer, the lower house of the Dutch parliament, gave Van Zwol five weeks to put together the new Cabinet. Before the Cabinet is presented, the intelligence services must first screen the future Ministers and they must visit parliament for questioning.