Speaker of the House of Representatives Vera Bergkamp wants a new development in the formation as a matter of urgency. She wrote this today in a letter to informers Johan Remkes and Wouter Koolmees. On Friday, the post-war record for longest-running formation was broken. The urgency to arrive at new conclusions in the formation process is increasing, Bergkamp warns.
The forming parties VVD, D66, CDA and ChristenUnie spoke last week at the Zwaluwenberg estate about the formation of a new cabinet. According to Remkes and Koolmees, those talks ‘contributed to a good basis for the progress of the cabinet formation in the coming period’, but they did not become more concrete.
Informer Wouter Koolmees does not think the record is something to celebrate, he said last Wednesday after arriving at the De Zwaluwenberg estate in Hilversum. “The end must now be in sight,” said Koolmees. Nevertheless, care is still required, he emphasized. The negotiations in Hilversum continued until Friday. This week the consultations will continue in Groningen.
Signs of impatience
According to Chamber President Bergkamp, there is a need for some haste in the formation of a new cabinet. ‘As chairman, I would nevertheless like to inform you that, especially now that the total formation time is longer than usual, the urgency to reach conclusions is also increasing,’ Bergkamp writes.
‘Increasingly signals of impatience are coming in from society’, says Bergkamp. ‘With all understanding for the substantive challenges, in which I will of course not enter, I urge you to inform the House of a timeline as soon as possible’, she concludes the letter.
Rutte-III
The Rutte-III cabinet was on the platform 225 days after the elections. The negotiations lasted so long in 2017, among other things, because an attempt to form a cabinet with VVD, CDA, D66 and GroenLinks failed. The consultations broke down with migration as the major stumbling block. In the end, the same parties that are now sitting around the table came to an agreement, but that also took time. They only had a narrow majority in the House of Representatives and therefore closed the coalition agreement on many aspects.
This will not be the first record to bear Rutte’s name, if he does indeed lead a new cabinet as expected. Earlier this month, Rutte-III became the longest-serving caretaker cabinet. With Rutte-II he already overtook Ruud Lubbers’ third cabinet as the longest-serving post-war government. If Rutte is still at the head of the cabinet at the beginning of August, he will also overtake Lubbers as the longest-serving post-war prime minister.
The current cabinet formation has been going on for 229 days. The previous record was held by the now outgoing Rutte III cabinet.
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