First Rutte cabinet

Formation

Main article: 2010 Dutch cabinet formation

Following the collapse of the fourth Balkenende cabinet on 20 February 2010, elections for the House of Representatives were held on 9 June 2010. As usual in Dutch politics, none of the parties had a majority and several informateurs were appointed to investigate the formation of a coalition cabinet. A broad coalition consisting of the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD), Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) and the Labour Party (PvdA) was briefly looked at, but dismissed. Then negotiations for a "purple plus" coalition consisting of the VVD, PvdA, Democrats 66 and GreenLeft lasted for about three weeks, but the parties could not reach agreement on the amount of budget cuts.

Finally, a construction which is rare for the Netherlands was investigated: a minority coalition consisting of the VVD and Christian Democratic Appeal (together 52 out of 150 seats in the House of Representatives), supported in parliament by the Party for Freedom (PVV, 24 seats), to make the smallest possible majority of 76 seats. The right wing PVV had the largest gains in the recent elections.

The stated reason for this construction was that parties agreed that the largest party (the VVD) and the party with the largest gains (considered the 'winner' in Dutch politics) needed to be in power. Only CDA could or wanted to help make a majority, but they were against forming a proper coalition with PVV because of their different views on Islam and immigration. Therefore, negotiations were held to form a coalition agreement between the VVD and CDA), and to form a "parliamentary support agreement" between all three parties, which were successfully finished on 30 September 2010.

When Rutte took office on 14 October, it marked the first time that the VVD had led a government since its formation in 1946. It also marked the first liberal-led government since 1913.

Opposition parties and commentators expected that the coalition would prove to be unstable because at a special Christian Democratic Appeal conference, about a third of the party members voted against the formation of this cabinet. Also, at least three members of parliament in the CDA parliamentary fraction indicated to have difficulties with the cabinet. Eventually they left the parliament or supported the deal, pointing to the approval by the majority of the party conference.

When the cabinet took office, the three parties had a minority in the Senate of 35 out of 75 seats. The parties hoped this would change following the Dutch Senate election of 2011, but they obtained 37 seats, one short of a majority. A small protestant party, the Reformed Political Party, which obtained one seat, supported the cabinet in the Senate however.

The cabinet consisted of 12 Ministers and 8 State secretaries. The positions where divided equally among the coalition members, regardless of their respective size: People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (31 seats in parliament) supplied 6 Ministers and 4 State secretaries, and Christian Democratic Appeal (21 seats) also supplied 6 Ministers and 4 State secretaries.

Term

Policy

In accordance with the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) approach to laissez-faire and a small government, the number of ministers and State Secretaries was reduced from the previous cabinet by merging several ministries. The Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality was merged with the Ministry of Economic Affairs to form a combined Ministry Economic Affairs, Agriculture and Innovation. The Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment was merged with the Ministry of Transport and Water Management to form the new Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment.

The portfolio of public security was transferred from the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations to the Ministry of Justice which was renamed as the Ministry of Security and Justice, in line with the tough security profile of the coalition parties, especially the VVD which delivered both the minister and state secretary for this department. Also the position of the Minister for Development Cooperation, a long serving Minister without portfolio title that had been used continuously since 1965 (except for a small break from 2002 to 2003), was scrapped and replaced by the return of a Minister without portfolio for Immigration and Asylum Affairs like in the previous Cabinets Balkenende I, II and III, but this time this post was placed at the department and budget of the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations instead of the Ministry of Security and Justice.

Withdrawal of support of the Party for Freedom

Because of the financial crisis in the Netherlands and because of the rules of the Euro convergence criteria that the deficit should be maximum 3%, the Leaders of the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy Mark Rutte, Christian Democratic Appeal Maxime Verhagen and the Party for Freedom Geert Wilders decided to talk with each other about new, severe austerity measures, worth about 14 billion Euro. The negotiations about the measures were held in the Catshuis and lasted 7 weeks and ended on 21 April when Geert Wilders walked out of the negotiations. The reason he gave was that the measure would negatively impact people who receive benefits from the pensions law. Both Mark Rutte and Maxime Verhagen blamed Wilders for the failure of the negotiations. As a result, the government resigned and a new election was called.

Composition changes

On 16 December 2011, Minister of the Interior and Kingdom Relations Piet Hein Donner (CDA) resigned after he was nominated as the new Vice-President of the Council of State succeeding Herman Tjeenk Willink. He was replaced as Minister of the Interior and Kingdom Relations by former Chairwoman of the Christian Democratic Appeal Liesbeth Spies. Piet Hein Donner as Minister of the Interior and Kingdom Relations was responsible for the portfolio of Integration. When he resigned the Integration portfolio was transferred to Minister without portfolio Gerd Leers.

Cabinet members

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Gallery

|File:Rutte-Clegg.jpg|Prime Minister Mark Rutte and Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Nick Clegg in the Torentje on 15 November 2010. |File:Mark Rutte ontvangt Europese Raad-voorzitter Van Rompuy.jpg|Prime Minister Mark Rutte and President of the European Council Herman Van Rompuy]] at the Catshuis on 20 January 2011. |File:Persmoment Rutte, Leterme en Juncker.jpg|Prime Minister of Belgium Yves Leterme, Prime Minister Mark Rutte and Prime Minister of Luxembourg Jean-Claude Juncker at the Catshuis on 24 May 2011. |File:Teeven Napolitano.jpg|State Secretary for Security and Justice Fred Teeven and United States Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano in The Hague on 22 June 2011. |File:Rutte and Nguyen Tan Dung 3.jpg|Prime Minister Mark Rutte and Prime Minister of Vietnam Nguyễn Tấn Dũng at the Binnenhof on 28 September 2011. |File:Ontmoeting Poetin (6266065156).jpg|Prime Minister Mark Rutte and Prime Minister of Russia Vladimir Putin in the White House on 20 October 2011. |File:Mark Rutte Barack Obama.jpg|Prime Minister Mark Rutte and President of the United States Barack Obama in the Oval Office on 29 November 2011. |File:Rutte and Reinfeldt.jpg|Prime Minister Mark Rutte and Prime Minister of Sweden Fredrik Reinfeldt at a press conference in Stockholm on 5 December 2011. |File:Persconferentie Rutte en Di Rupo (6720520991).jpg|Prime Minister of Belgium Elio Di Rupo and Prime Minister Mark Rutte at a press conference at the Catshuis on 18 January 2012. |File:Informeel werkdiner met Merkel (6874671461).jpg|Prime Minister of Estonia Andrus Ansip, Prime Minister of Denmark Helle Thorning-Schmidt, Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel and Prime Minister Mark Rutte at the Catshuis on 13 February 2012. |File:Aankomst Wu Bangguo (7204287582).jpg|Chinese top politician Wu Bangguo and Prime Minister Mark Rutte at the Binnenhof on 15 May 2012. |File:Ontmoeting premier Rajoy (7350703118).jpg|Prime Minister Mark Rutte and Prime Minister of Spain Mariano Rajoy in Madrid on 7 June 2012. |File:Mark Rutte and Angela Merkel 2012 (cropped).jpg|Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel and Prime Minister Mark Rutte in Berlin on 20 June 2012.

References

References

1. (7 October 2010). "Mark Rutte: eerste liberale premier sinds 1918". eenvandaag.nl.
2. "CV | Mark Rutte". rijksoverheid.nl.
3. "Mark Rutte". VVD.
4. {{in lang. nl [http://nos.nl/artikel/322712-benoeming-spies-tot-minister-verwacht.html Benoeming Spies tot minister vrijdag verwacht], NOS, 15 December 2011
5. {{in lang. nl [http://nos.nl/artikel/322863-donner-naar-raad-van-state.html Donner naar Raad van State], NOS, 16 December 2011
6. {{in lang. nl [http://www.nu.nl/politiek/2694905/spies-volgt-donner-in-kabinet.html 'Spies volgt Donner op in kabinet'], NU.nl, 16 December 2011