Coalition agreement "balanced" and "good", party leaders say

The parties in the Cabinet formation process managed to write "a thinner coalition agreement" than four years ago, said ChristenUnie leader Gert-Jan Segers. According to him, they made less detailed agreements. That offers more room for the lower house of the Dutch parliament. The 2017 coalition agreement had about 70 pages.

D66 leader Sigrid Kaag called the negotiation results "nice and balanced." She said she would present it "with pleasure and hope" to her party members. The parliamentary factions of the four parties will discuss the agreements on Tuesday.

VVD leader Mark Rutte spoke of "a good agreement" but emphasized that everything stands or falls with the implementation. His CDA colleague Wopke Hoekstra is happy that the negotiations are finally done. "It took a long time, and it sometimes had something of a pincers release," he said. Hoekstra also noted that he was satisfied with the result.

The parties always said that they were striving for a coalition agreement in broad terms. That was not entirely successful, according to informateur Wouter Koolmees (D66). "Some more agreements have been made." He has not yet released more details about the agreement. "We are not there yet. We first have to go to the factions."

After the factions discuss the agreement, the party leaders will again meet on Wednesday morning to discuss possible adjustments proposed. The agreement will be presented later that morning. Then the informateurs will also give more explanation.

The agreement will likely be discussed in parliament on Thursday. After the debate, Rutte can take over as an informateur. He will then meet with the future ministers. The new Cabinet will be sworn in sometime in the second week of January, possibly on January 10.

The coalition agreement was done 217 days after the parliamentary election in March.