Parties edge closer to finish line in Dutch
cabinet negotiations
May 13,
2024
https://www.dutchnews.nl/2024/05/parties-edge-closer-to-finish-line-in-dutch-cabinet-negotiations/
The parties
trying to form a right-wing government in the Netherlands are said to have
settled their differences on migration, days before the talks reach a crucial
deadline.
The two
negotiators leading the third round of negotiations, Richard van Zwol and
Elbert Dijkgraaf, are due deliver their conclusions to parliament by 11.55pm on
Wednesday and have said there will be no extension.
Last week
there were signs of progress as the four parties sat around the negotiating
table for up to 10 hours a day and met again on Saturday, after several weeks
of mostly separate discussions with Van Zwol and Dijkgraaf.
The four
parties have also submitted their financial plans to the economic planning
agency CPB, another sign that the talks have moved onto the substantive issues.
Public
spending is said to be one of the main sticking points in the negotiations,
with the right-wing Liberal VVD demanding an austerity plan to keep the
national deficit within the EU limit of 3%, while Geert Wilders’s far-right PVV
wants to boost spending on social security and healthcare.
Van Zwol
and Dijkgraaf were cautious about the prospect of a breakthrough as they
arrived at the talks on Monday morning.
“Constructive” talks
Dijkgraaf
said he was “a little more optimistic”, but added: “You never know what will
pop up. We’re taking it day by day.”
Wilders was
more bullish about the chances of reaching an agreement, as the AD newspaper
quoted sources saying that the four parties had concluded their discussions on
immigration.
“All I can
say now is that we’re all doing our best and the finish is in sight,” Wilders
said. He described the negotiations as “constructive”.
Prime minister
Wilders
also said he had found and contacted a suitable candidate for the role of prime
minister, but gave no hints as to who it might be.
Conventionally
the leader of the largest party in the coalition becomes prime minister, but
the four party leaders agreed in an earlier stage of talks that none of them
would take up the post.
Caroline
van der Plas, leader of the farmers’ party BBB, said she was “hopeful” of an
agreement, while VVD leader Dilan Yesilgöz and Pieter Omtzigt, of the
centre-right NSC, were tight-lipped.
Omtzigt
struck a less optimistic note last Friday when he said there were still
“significant differences” in the parties’ positions.
The NSC
leader has said the new cabinet must uphold international treaties, court
judgments and the terms of EU membership, but has also called for labour and
student migration numbers to be cut drastically.
Omtzigt
left the first stage of talks early in February, but was brought back to the
negotiating table after the parties agreed to form a “programme cabinet”, half
of whose members will be appointed from outside the political parties.
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