VVD will take part in an “extra-parliamentary” cabinet: Yesilgöz

 

VVD will take part in an “extra-parliamentary” cabinet: Yesilgöz

February 14, 2024

https://www.dutchnews.nl/2024/02/vvd-will-take-part-in-an-extra-parliamentary-cabinet-yesilgoz/

 

VVD leader Dilan Dilan Yesilgöz has said her party might be prepared to form a coalition with the far-right PVV and pro-countryside BBB in an extra-parliamentary cabinet as a way out of the current impasse.

 

Speaking during Wednesday’s debate on the coalition negotiations so far, Yesilgöz said it was easy to keep going on about what had happened to date. “But I would rather look forward,” she told MPs.

 

Immediately after the elections on November 22 last year, Yesilgöz said that her party would not join a right-wing cabinet but would support it from the sidelines. And while it would have been easier to keep to this position, a mature party should be able to move forward, she said on Wednesday.

 

An extra-parliamentary cabinet with independent ministers would be the “most realistic option”, she said, adding later in the debate that such a cabinet could include more parties than the current four.

 

Pieter Omtzigt, the leader of new party NSC who pulled out of the negotiations last week, has said he too favoured an extra-parliamentary cabinet, which would bring more distance between ministers and parliament.

 

“We need to get away from suffocating coalition politics,” he said, adding that so many problems in society do not get solved because the coalition partners cannot agree between them.

 

But CDA leader Henri Bontenbal said it was ‘nuts” that both the VVD and NSC are leaning towards such a cabinet, without anyone knowing exactly what that would entail.

 

Constitutional law professor Paul Bovend’Eert told the AD that an “extra-parliamentary” or “business” cabinet involves a looser alliance of parties without a hard and fast programme. Ministers do not have to be members of one of parties and the links with parliament are not as strict.

 

The Netherlands has not had such a parliament since 1926 to 1929, when the election resulted in a highly polarised parliament and MPs decided to try this instead, Bovend’Eert told the paper.

 

Others suggest the last was in 1939 and lasted just two days.

 

New talks

 

Meanwhile, PVV leader Geert Wilders has suggested Kim Putters, a former Labour senator and current head of the SER advisory body, should lead the next stage in the formation talks between the PVV, BBB and VVD. The NSC had said it will not be a main player in the negotiations at this stage.