Cabinet will tackle voters' major concerns better, PM Rutte promises

The Cabinet will try to make improvements to issues voters are concerned about, Prime Minister Mark Rutte (VVD) said after a meeting between the top of the Cabinet following the election results. The four coalition parties lost heavily in the provincial elections. Newcomer BoerBurgerBeweging (BBB) achieved a historic victory in all provinces.

That prompted the Cabinet to look at major current issues, like the people of Groningen victimized by natural gas extraction, the settlement of the benefits scandal, and, of course, the nitrogen crisis. The Cabinet expects to send a letter about this to parliament on Friday. Rutte did not say on Tuesday evening which improvements the Cabinet intends to make. The “processes” he mentioned are often complicated files that the Cabinet has struggled with for a long time.

“Of course, you can never make the perfect analysis,” Rutte acknowledged after the consultation at his Ministry of General Affairs, which he said happened in a “good atmosphere.” Nevertheless, the Cabinet thinks it has an idea of what signals the voter has sent. For example, an important question the Cabinet is now asking itself is: “is politics there for everyone in the Netherlands?” According to Rutte, the answer to that is insufficient.

The Cabinet also sees the BBB’s popularity as an expression of unease. Recent reports indicate that there is regional inequality in the Netherlands. In the countryside, there are problems with disappearing bus lines and long ambulance response times. But there are also problems in the big cities, for example, because of the expensive houses.

.The crisis consultation, which was not called by the Cabinet leaders themselves, lasted almost four hours. Rutte, the three Deputy Prime Ministers Sigrid Kaag (D66), Wopke Hoekstra (CDA), and Carola Schouten (ChristenUnie), and their “seconds” started the talks just after 7:00 p.m. Three of those seconds are known for their financial knowledge. “They always need a boring bookkeeper,” said CDA State Secretary Marnix van Rij (Taxation) before the meeting about his presence.

But that does not mean that the coalition agreement will be broken, said Rutte, the only one to comment about the consultation afterward. It wasn’t about that, he said. It was a “more fundamental” discussion, also because the unease in society has been going on for much longer. According to Rutte, the conversation was also not about 2030 as the year in which nitrogen emissions must be halved. The CDA, in particular, has difficulty with this. However, the whole issue of “how can we reduce nitrogen” was on the table.

The Cabinet meeting was also in preparation for the parliamentary debate on the election results on April 4. The entire opposition had asked for the debate because the parties want to know which direction the Cabinet is taking with its policy now that right-wing BBB has become a major factor in the provinces and the Senate.