Schoof I Cabinet presenting government agreement after long, tumultous negotiations

The Schoof I Cabinet will present its government agreement—the PVV, VVD, NSC, and BBB’s coalition agreement worked out in more detail—at 4:00 p.m. on Friday. After long and difficult negotiations, the Cabinet members reached their agreement last week.

Several plans from the government program have already leaked to the press. For example, Minister Marjolein Faber of Asylum plans to suspend part of the Aliens Act so that the government can declare an asylum crisis and severely limit the number of people who can seek safety in the Netherlands. According to several media sources, her plans include significant restrictions on family reunification, appeal options to IND decisions, and renewed asylum applications. The expectation is that Schoof will declare an asylum crisis around Budget Day next week.

Sources told the Telegraaf that Agriculture Minister Femke Wiersma is planning major cuts to all livestock to comply with European manure regulations. She will make more money available for farmers who want to be bought out or innovate, and sold farms will have to shrink after the sale. Wiersma is largely adopting the plans of her predecessor, Piet Adema, even though her party, the BBB, vehemently objected to those plans.

Wiersma also scrapped the program for provinces to address the nitrogen crisis and restore nature, but it is not expected that the government agreement will elaborate on plans to replace it. Despite the provinces’ appeal for urgency, Wiersma will likely only present her plans to reduce nitrogen precipitation at the end of the year.

Education Minister Eppo Bruins is exchanging cutbacks on plans that will affect the jobs of 1,200 scientists for a budget cut on grants for starting scientists.

After some heated fighting between PVV and NSC Cabinet members, the government program will also include support for a two-state solution for Palestine and Israel. It has been standing policy for years that Dutch governments support a separate state for Palestine and Israel. But, the PVV Ministers refused to include it in the government agreement. That touched a nerve with the NSC Ministers, who value the two-state solution because they feel it offers security for Israel and prospects for Palestine. With the intervention of the Deputy Prime Ministers of the other two coalition parties, they came up with text that all four parties could live with, sources told NOS.

Prime Minister Dick Schoof promised that the government agreement would make “objectives, approach, planning, and resources” clear. But, sources close to the government told ANP that the document will add little to some points.

Confidence in the Schoof I Cabinet is relatively stable at 39 percent, according to a recent survey by EenVandaag. But 69 percent of voters expect the government to collapse before the end of its turn.

RTL’s political correspondent Fons Lambie doesn’t expect the government agreement to change that sentiment much. “The coalition is unstable. The formation and budget negotiations between the party leaders did not go well. NS leader Omtzigt is at home sick. The BBB received negative reactions from the farming community yesterday to the plans of their own BBB Minister. This coalition is surrounded by uncertainty, which a government program of dozens of pages cannot remove,” he told the broadcaster.