Rutte illness delays political debate over nitrogen emissions, public dissatisfaction

The highly anticipated political debate into the results of the provincial elections was moved from Tuesday to late Wednesday morning, a spokesperson for the Tweede Kamer said. The decision was made at the request of Prime Minister Mark Rutte who said he was sick. The governing coalition between the VVD, D66, CDA and ChristenUnie is faltering and will be put to the test during the parliamentary debate.

Rutte said that the trouble was "probably" due to eating something that was off. He said he asked the chair of the Tweede Kamer, the lower house of Parliament, to delay the debate so he has a chance to recover. He said on Twitter that the request was because he anticipated that he "will have recovered by then."

The debate was initially supposed to start late Tuesday afternoon and it was expected to last well into the night.

The opposition parties are expected to attempt to drive a wedge between the coalition parties, specifically CDA and D66, and thus put further pressure on Rutte's fourth Cabinet. The CDA and D66 have been strongly opposed to each other, specifically on the issue of nitrogen emissions, after the outcome of last month's provincial elections.

After the major election victory by the BoerBurgerBeweging (BBB), the parties discussed how to proceed, not only with regard to the nitrogen dossier, but also with regard to general discontent in the country. The coalition parties also view the BBB's victory as the public's reaction to the inadequate handling of the tax office's childcare benefits scandal, an issue which involved algorithmic profiling to unjustly classify people as a fraud risk, and the earthquake damage in Groningen. But after a week full of crisis consultations, the coalition remains divided and the question of what to do next has not been answered.

The CDA wants to break open the coalition agreement and use 2035 as the deadline for the nitrogen emissions targets, while the Cabinet now wants 2030. But the party only wants to negotiate after the provincial councils have been formed. Rutte said he wanted to accelerate the nitrogen approach, but without saying how. The party leaders of the four coalition parties were also unable to clarify on Friday how exactly they can show that improvement has been made on issues like the benefits scandal and the handling of earthquake victims. In fact, the confusion seemed even greater despite the coalition parties saying they were in "agreement" after their crisis meetings.

Opposition parties want answers. If they don't come, it could be "a very exciting debate," political sources said. Waiting months for provinces to have a board, as CDA leader Wopke Hoekstra proposes, is not an option for many. Not all parties want to wait until the next Tweede Kamer election either, the election which leads to a new Cabinet. The next election will take place in 2025, unless the Cabinet collapses first.

Others have already announced they want a vote of no confidence. Support for this has come from the far-right parties JA21 and the PVV, PVV leader Geert Wilders told ANP on Monday. The opposition parties may work together on this, but they are also strongly divided on content of a future agreement, for example on the country's national nitrogen policy.

The coalition parties do not want to say anything substantive yet. However, D66 leader Sigrid Kaag repeated on Saturday that the coalition agreement stands as far as she is concerned. It states that the nitrogen targets must be achieved in 2030, and not in 2035 as the CDA now wants. D66 said it understands Hoekstra wants to negotiate the issue, and ChristenUnie leader Mirjam Bikker wants to get back to work on the nitrogen issue without losing sight of what is happening at the provincial level or within the farming and agriculture sector.

The debate will be followed by question time, and then several votes will be held.