Plans to form new Rutte Cabinet before Christmas: report

The four parties in the Cabinet formation process have a concrete plan to have a coalition agreement ready by Sinterklaas and a Cabinet formed before Christmas, sources told Nieuwsuur. VVD leader Mark Rutte will head this next Cabinet too, the sources said.

To achieve this, the negotiators for the VVD, D66, CDA, and ChristenUnie will seclude themselves in Zwaluwenberg for three days next week. A coronavirus debate scheduled for Wednesday will be moved to Tuesday so that the parties can focus entirely on the formation. "They are going to lock themselves up to take concrete steps. A lot of knots have been inventoried in recent weeks. They now have to cut through them," political reporter Arjan Noorlander said to Nieuwsuur.

The Tweede Kamer, the lower house of Dutch parliament, reprimanded informateurs Johan Remkes and Wouter Koolmees last week over the long-dragging Cabinet formation process. The parliamentary elections were held in March. They blamed the dragging process on the fact that the formation parties have only actually been negotiating for the past five weeks and the much-discussed new management culture.

Regarding the new management culture, there were speculations that all party leaders would become the faction leaders of their parties in the Tweede Kamer - instead of Cabinet members. But that idea seems to have been scrapped. According to Nieuwsuur's sources, VVD leader Mark Rutte will be Prime Minister for the fourth time in the new Cabinet. However, insiders expect that Rutte will do things differently than in his previous three Cabinets. He will likely appoint more Ministers, as multiple Ministers in the Rutte III Cabinet stepped down due to issues caused by the high workload.

If all goes according to plan, King Willem-Alexander will appoint the new Cabinet in mid-December.