A very different method. An experiment. “We’re really going to try something new.” At the start of the substantive negotiations on a new coalition agreement, Johan Remkes and his new colleague informant Wouter Koolmees tried to paint the picture that everything will be different from now on.
In their view, the next phase of the cabinet formation that has been so difficult to date should already show something of the widely desired new administrative culture. What does that one look like?
Johan Remkes, the VVD veteran who finally managed to make a selection of negotiating partners last week – the current coalition partners VVD, D66, CDA and ChristenUnie – believes that an “open attitude” is required in any case. From both the four negotiating teams that are now going to talk to each other, and from the two informants. But also: an open attitude of ‘the other parties’. Because, Remkes said at his press conference on Wednesday in the inquiry room of the Logement, “there will come a closer moment when we will understand ourselves with other groups than the four groups that initially sit around the table”. So yet another look from the potential government parties to other parties in the highly fragmented House of Representatives.
This is remarkable because, when asked, Remkes also had to acknowledge that the two parties that are most eligible for this from the ‘constructive centre’, PvdA and GroenLinks, have repeatedly stated that they only want to participate in the discussion if they can participate fully and (jointly). negotiate a new coalition agreement. And CDA and VVD did not want that. The left-wing bloc does not participate in tolerance, supplying ‘extra-parliamentary’ ministers or making partial agreements in certain areas.
GroenLinks leader Jesse Klaver and his PvdA colleague Lilianne Ploumen emphasized this via Twitter a few hours after the press conference. Ploumen: “Propping up the restart of the Rutte III cabinet: no, of course not.” Clover: “If they want to know what we think about something, they can read the GroenLinks election program.”
The how and the what question
A second element of new-style formation negotiations is that, as far as Koolmees and Remkes are concerned, a thin coalition agreement is first written, with broad agreements between the four groups involved, and then a government program with a more precise implementation agenda for the new ministerial team. This should lead to, in the words of Koolmees, “the distance between the future cabinet and the House of Representatives becoming somewhat greater”. More room for dualism, therefore, for both coalition and opposition parties.
In the simple explanation of this, the two informants mentioned the nitrogen problem as an example. The objective of nitrogen reduction is then formulated as a ‘what’ question in the thin coalition agreement. The ‘how’ questions are then for the relevant ministers who, in consultation with the House, must come up with concrete solutions.
A good starting point, but Koolmees had to admit right away that the various ways of tackling the nitrogen problem – in a previous advisory role Remkes made numerous suggestions two years ago: reducing livestock numbers, stricter guidelines for construction or industry – are politically controversial. For some parties, it is actually desirable to make detailed agreements about this in advance: “In addition to defining what you want to achieve, you will also have to think about the how.”
The two new process facilitators are so optimistic about a smooth course of the coming negotiation phase – they see a “great sense of urgency” and expect parties to take responsibility. Yet, unspoken, they see enough bumps in the road. Remkes: “There is of course no guarantee of success.”
Remkes and Koolmees also expect the four formation teams to invest ‘in good mutual relationships and mutual trust’. After all the incidents and accusations, that is apparently still necessary. The informants are taking a first step in this direction by ordering the negotiators and their deputies for their first meeting on Wednesday evening. According to ChristenUnie leader Gert-Jan Segers, they would also have a “nice” meal. “We are a little bit ready for that.”
mmv
Also read: These stumbling blocks of the 2017 formation are not gone yet
A version of this article also appeared in NRC in the morning of October 7, 2021