The Dutch have a new government. Now the hunger games begin.

 

The Dutch have a new government. Now the hunger games begin.

 

Rob Jetten will struggle to push through his agenda with a minority government.

 

February 23, 2026 6:15 pm CET

By Eva Hartog

https://www.politico.eu/article/dutch-new-government-rob-jetten-now-hunger-games-begin-netherlands/

 

The Netherlands’ youngest prime minister, Rob Jetten, was sworn in on Monday vowing to end the paralysis and polarization that plagued the previous government, the most far-right in Dutch politics.

 

That promised return to the Netherlands’ historical tradition of consensus politics will be a tall order for the 38-year centrist, however.

 

He now presides over a fragile minority government and his plans on cutting welfare and social security spending are already facing backlash across the political spectrum.

 

With far-right parties leading the polls in France and Germany, Jetten’s victory in October was welcomed by traditional parties in Brussels because it had been touch-and-go whether voters in the EU’s fifth-biggest economy would support centrists rather than the far right.

 

One hundred and seventeen days of coalition building later, Jetten faces a battle to drive through an ambitious agenda that includes a massive boost to defense spending in line with NATO’s 3.5-percent core target and reducing emissions from one of Europe’s most important livestock industries.

 

On all counts, his opponents are out to extract painful concessions at the risk of political deadlock.

 

Consultancy Verisk Maplecroft has ranked the Netherlands as the third-most governmentally unstable country in Europe, behind Bulgaria and Moldova.

 

The question now is whether Jetten’s government can buck a trend that has already seen two governments collapse in four years.

 

Knives out for coalition deal

In its coalition agreement, Jetten’s government —  which, aside from his own centrist D66, also includes the center-right Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) and the liberal People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) —  has promised to splurge on defense and housing and reintroduce voluntary farm buyouts, while maintaining a hawkish fiscal policy.

 

To fund the spending bonanza, it is proposing a “freedom contribution” tax on income on top of drastic cuts to welfare and social security spending.

 

The coalition agreement also looks to continue a strict line on migration set by the previous, far-right government, and envisages accelerating previous plans to increase the pension age.

 

The left and far right have their knives out for the agreement.

 

GreenLeft-Labor alliance (GL-PvDA) leader Jesse Klaver said he would only support the plans in case “of a U-turn.”

 

Geert Wilders, who leads the far-right Freedom Party (PVV) promised to fight it “tooth and nail.”

 

And Socialist Party (SP) leader Jimmy Dijk went as far as saying the government blueprint constituted “a frontal attack on our civilization.”

 

To get anywhere, Jetten’s government will need their support. The coalition has only 66 out of 150 seats in the lower house of Dutch parliament — 10 short of a majority. In the upper house of parliament, its position is even weaker, with 22 out of 75 seats.

 

Jetten himself has defended the minority government as a boon to democracy because it will allow opposition parties a greater say.

 

But some argue that presents too rosy a picture, pointing out that the last formal minority government in 1939 collapsed after only two days.

 

A minority government is like “driving on the wrong side of the road,” political historian Kemal Rijken told Dutch public radio. “It’s quite dangerous and risky.”

 

Presumably, a minority government was not Jetten’s first choice, either. The logical alternative would have been to include GL-PvdA, but the VVD torpedoed that possibility, rejecting the left-wing party as too “radical.”

 

“The problem in The Hague is that parties that should be able to work together exclude each other,” explained Simon Otjes, аn associate professor of Dutch politics at Leiden University.

 

Another option would have been to invite the far-right JA21 party into the coalition, but that would have come at the steep price of alienating Jetten’s progressive voter base.

 

Cobbling together coalitions

Jetten’s minority government might represent less of a sea-change than it might seem at first glance. Haggling for political support from unlikely allies has, in recent years, been a fixture of Dutch politics.

 

While the last official minority government was in 1939, the liberal Mark Rutte formed a highly unorthodox arrangement in 2010 in which he relied on the support of anti-Islam firebrand Wilders.

 

Consecutive Dutch governments have since ruled with coalitions that, at some stage during their term, were forced to make do with minority support after one of the coalition parties pulled out, or lacked a clear majority in one or other chambers of parliament, Otjes noted.

 

“Every coalition has needed support from opposition parties to make laws and that remains unchanged,” he said.

 

Moreover, on several core issues, finding an agreement might not present too much of a challenge.

 

On migration, for example, the coalition is likely to look for, and find, support on the far-right flank. On the other hand, it is likely to turn to the GL-PvDA for support on climate and measures to cut back nitrogen emissions from farms.

 

There’s also widespread support for its plans to boost defense spending to meet NATO targets.

 

Analysts point out, however, it will be much harder to get parties to agree to the far-reaching cuts to social spending, whether on the left or the far right, leaving the foundation underpinning Jetten’s plans resting on quicksand.

 

Jetten’s own answer to bridging deep political division is humility.

 

In selecting his ministers, Jetten said he looked for those “who are able to listen and don’t have all too big an ego.”

 

But the new prime minister himself risks becoming the greatest casualty of the political tightrope exercise.

 

The main risk is that left-wing voters who helped him to victory in last October’s election might change their minds in light of what looks to be his government’s overwhelmingly right-wing agenda.

 

Jetten can celebrate today. But from Tuesday, the hunger games begin.