Politics and Elections in the Netherlands: coalition agreement presented

[mvd10]

I think D66 really wants to claim Energy/Climate, Education and to a lesser extent Economic Affairs to show the government has a progressive side, and if they already claim 3 ministries I don't think they get to choose the 4th. It's probably still easier to profile yourself as a strong progressive at Energy or Education than at Foreign Affairs (you'll probably mostly get in the news for refugee deals which GL opposes). Maybe they will create a State Secretary (deputy minister) for European Affairs and someone from D66 gets that position (we had a State Secretary for European Affairs in the past). But I agree that we shouldn't underestimate Pechtold's ego. The VVD will want some important portfolios as well, they won't just accept 5 minor ministries even though they also get the PM. Meanwhile ten Broeke and Hennis-Plasschaert are quite left-wing for VVD politicians as far as I know, especially Hennis-Plasschaert easily could have been in D66 (and she would be the first female Foreign minister like you mentioned).

[mvd10]

The next government might raise the lower VAT rate (food and labor intensive services) to raise revenue for tax reform. I'd support it. completely eliminating the low rate would raise 1.5% of GDP which could be used to reduce income tax rates or expand tax breaks on labor income. And since there is some budgetary space you could reserve 4-6 billion euros to compensate people who would be worse off under tax reform. But like everything I support it's political suicide, the comment sections of the Telegraaf and de Dagelijkse Standaard (I only read this for amusement, pls don't judge) are exploding. De Dagelijkste Standaard is especially funny btw, they usually rant about left-wing women but once in a while their editor writes some lolbertarian stuff ("CUT WELFARE BY 10% AND THE LAZIES WILL WORK"), and their readers somehow don't really like that.

[mvd10]

I actually heard from Lodewijk Asscher at the Global Progress Summit this weekend. He cracked a few jokes about how badly PvdA did and about how dysfunctional Dutch government is rn. Seemed like a great guy!

Yeah, people make a lot of jokes about the PvdA these days. A famous Dutch comedian described the SPD (German social democrats) with: "they're like the PvdA, but then with seats!" Asscher originally started out as a centrist (a lot of people think he easily could have been in the Amsterdam VVD when he was deputy mayor in Amsterdam), but he in the campaign for the PvdA leadership he suddenly became a true leftist.

In one of the last debates Asscher had to debate Wilders and he was really good, if we had seen that Asscher more they might have had more seats. But the problem with the PvdA campaign was that they were stuck between defending/being proud of the VVD-PvdA government and attacking the PVV or distancing themselves from the government and attacking the VVD. In the end they did a bit of both and it didn't work out, it probably would have been better if they had chosen one strategy and focused on it. But since we're going to have a centre-right cabinet which is going to try to reform the labour market without union support I wouldn't be surprised if the PvdA does quite well in the next elections (though I don't think they will reach 25-30% like they used to do in most elections in the past).

Oh, and pls no Dutch government formation length jokes. They're as funny as high school dick jokes to us .

[mvd10]

Who would stand to gain if no government is formed and elections are called?

A government probably will be formed within a month (everyone is very confident about it and they're even talking about potential ministers). But if the talks suddenly failed I don't know what will happen. A VVD-CDA-D66 minority coalition is a possibility, but the Dutch hate minority coalitions. If new elections are called FvD (small right-wing party) will win seats, that's the only thing I'm sure about. I don't really know about the rest. But new elections wouldn't solve anything. There is no serious coalition with a majority in the senate that hasn't been explored by now, and the next senate elections (officially they are provincial elections after which members of the provincial states select senators, but nobody cares about provincial governments so they're basically senate elections) are in 2019. Having a majority in the Tweede Kamer while not having one in the senate/Eerste Kamer has some procedural advantages over not having a majority in either chamber but in the end new elections won't solve much even if VVD-CDA-D66 wins a majority for example. And it's impossible to say what would happen in new elections, the VVD ended up overperforming the polls because of Rutte's strong reaction to the diplomatic row with Turkey. You can't predict those events.

The only real change since March in the polls is a rise in support for FvD (from 2 seats to 5-7 seats). Perhaps the voters will go for stability and flock to VVD-CDA-D66, but I'm not sure whether that will happen after the formation failure. They could go to the PVV, but not if they run a horrible campaign like they did earlier this year. And the PVV usually wins when external events happen (like the refugee stream of 2015), so I doubt they will win much seats without a new refugee stream or a terror attack. Klavermentum has stalled a bit (maybe because of the VVD-CDA-D66-GL negotiations?) and I don't think there is much space for a left-wing insurgency among young people in the Netherlands (in that aspect the Netherlands is much closer to Germany where young people like centrist/centre-right Merkel than to Anglo-Saxon countries). The SP has had some internal trouble since March, and even SP voters apparently didn't really appreciate Roemer's unwillingness to join a VVD-led coalition (as he actually could have achieved things there, the VVD is quite flexible ideologically). Perhaps the PvdA will win some seats as Asscher started to profile himself on teachers' salaries and stuff like that. But the polls don't show much movement for the PvdA.

Klaas Dijkhoff (future VVD leader, PM, 2nd President of Europe after Kurz and Master of the Universe) is almost certainly becoming VVD parliamentary leader. Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert (the other candidate) has said she expects to become minister in Rutte III (either Defense or Foreign Affairs probably). This increases his chances of becoming the next VVD leader imo, as parliamentary leader he has more freedom.

I don't know what they see in Hennis-Plasschaert. Her first few years at Defense were a disaster and she isn't terribly charismatic. She also is rather left-wing for a VVD politician and the VVD usually does much better under more right-wing leaders (Rutte originally started out as a centrist but I strongly doubt you can call post-2009 Rutte a centrist). Yet they still placed her ahead of Zijlstra (who despite having some flaws would be far superior to Hennis-Plasschaert) and Dijkhoff on the party list, and they also considered her for parliamentary leader which probably is a sign they see a potential leader in her. Maybe they wanted to play the "woman card", but in that case they just should have begged Edith Schippers to remain in politics (if Rutte wants a top EU job in 2019 it's his, and Schippers could take over and become the first female PM).

[mvd10]

Isn't that photo 10+ years old though? She's still very attractive for a 40-something politician though . I think I once said that I'd totally do her when I still was in high school.

[mvd10]

We've still got Halbe Zijlstra, who is even more conservative than Schippers on immigration and national identity and still has a decent shot at becoming PM imo (though his stock has fallen compared to 2 years ago imo). But the most likely next VVD leader is Klaas Dijkhoff, and I can't really place him ideologically (he's only been a household name since 2015). I guess he's roughly in the centre of the VVD? Being centre-right/right-wing on national identity issues doesn't mean you have to be so pessimistic and grim as Buma (see: Lindner, Kurz and Rutte ).

Not much happened, besides even more stories about how we're in the last phase of government formation. I'm not really optimistic about VVD-CDA-D66-CU anymore. No social agreement will mean full blown union opposition (any social agreement wasn't going to be ambitious anyway though), a very thin majority is never good and Buma probably will clash with D66 and parts of the VVD a lot the coming few years (not to mention the CDA/CU-VVD/D66 clashes on ethical issues and the tax system and the VVD-everyone else clashes on the economy). I don't really expect much from the next coalition anymore, especially since budgetary room has become smaller since March (which will mean less money to make deep reforms more palatable).

[mvd10]

Bad news for the VVD. Defence Minister Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert might be forced to resign. According to a report the Defence Ministry made huge mistakes which resulted in the death of 2 young soldiers in Mali (they died during an accident with mortar grenades, apparently the grenades weren't safe). While Rutte and Hennis-Plasschaert herself said that she would stay on Deputy PM (and PvdA leader) Lodewijk Asscher said that she should resign. A leading VVD member said: "This isn't a knife in the back, this is a samurai sword."

Even if Hennis-Plasschaert doesn't have to resign this kills off any remaining chances of her becoming VVD leader imo (Dijkhoff 2021!). I also don't know what this means for her position in the next cabinet. I don't think they'll let her stay at Defence after this, but appointing her Foreign Affairs Minister after a scandal like this also won't be smart politically. Maybe she'll become parliamentary leader after all (or perhaps she'll get an entirely different portfolio). And if she is forced to resign it's game over anyway. I don't think she will make it tbh.

Former VVD backbencher Ybletje Berckmoes-Duindam released a book about the VVD. Before this she was most famous for being the the most anonymous MP (and she herself has acknowledged that she failed at being MP), but this book surely changes it. She's very critical of the VVD. According to her there is a culture of fear within the parliamentary VVD, MP's are expected to do exactly what they're told. She claims that some MP's even were voting while they were drunk. Apparently Halbe Zijlstra can be quite intimidating (this doesn't surprise me at all tbh), Hennis-Plasschaert is quite bossy and Klaas Dijkhoff is a "blaffende generaal" (roughly translate to barking general). She even claims that they often try to get rid of disappointing MP's by trying to appoint them as mayors of small towns (which really fits the FvD's party cartel narrative). According to her this also explains why the VVD opposes a directly elected mayor: they see the mayoralty as an excellent way to get rid of failed MP's without causing a stir.

A lot of this probably is exaggerated, but I think there definitely is a large part of truth to this. Some of the things she claims have been circulating for years (for example the fact that foreign policy spokesperson Han ten Broeke probably won't become Minister because of a conflict with Halbe Zijlstra) and she isn't the first MP to complain about the iron fraction discipline. And for the drunk MP's part: VVD members are known for living the good life (yours truly included).

[mvd10]

Tax reform is badly needed, and income inequality in the Netherlands has barely risen the past 20 years so I don't think that's a huge problem (but I'm a right-winger so I'm very biased on this ). Further limiting the mortgage interest deduction also is an option btw, and the mortgage interest deduction disproportionately benefits VVD voters wealthy people. I suppose they're going to increase the tax credit on labour income (and other tax credits). They're going to reserve €5 billion + billions of €€€ from tax hikes on consumption and pollution in order to slash income taxes, and the proposed income tax rate changes only would cost €5 billion (and less if deductions only can be applied to the lower rate) which leaves a lot of money for other tax cuts, and those probably will be used to make sure low incomes and pensioners don't lose out.

I fully support the social flat tax (this is how CDA and CU call it). An actual flat tax would be unrealistic and a distributional nightmare, so I'd settle for a flat tax plus a surcharge for high incomes. The most attractive part of this tax plan is that it reduces marginal tax rates for low and middle incomes (especially if they also increase the labour tax credit), which is necessary because marginal tax rates for them are criminally high (a lot of tax credits and means-tested benefits start to phase-out very early).

I might be wrong, but weren't the grenades bought when Henk Kamp (also VVD, currently Economic Affairs Minister but will retire in a few weeks) was Defense Minister? Anyway, I'm not very confident about Hennis-Plasschaert's chances. This is a very serious and tragic affair and Hennis-Plasschaert never was that popular (the military also doesn't like her) so I doubt public opinion is on her side. She already made a lot of mistakes during her first couple of years, and there are plenty of capable candidates for Defense and Foreign Affairs.

[mvd10]

It really depends on your situation (as you obviously don't receive a means-tested tax credit for working parents if you're not a working parent for example ), but this is the graph:



The purple line is the average marginal tax rate, the other 2 lines are the 5th percentile and the 95th percentile. The marginal tax rate for people earning between 10 and 20k is quite low because of the labour tax credit which phases in between 10k and 20k. But if you get beyond that the marginal rate gets really high in some circumstances. And if your income gets really high your marginal tax rate basically is 52% because all means-tested tax credits/benefits are fully phased out or fully phased in (except for some very weird cases I suppose?).

[mvd10]

Yeah, Hennis-Plasschaert should have known this regardless and she is responsible for this, but I just wondered whether this also will haunt Kamp. Probably not though, he won't be in Rutte 3 anyway.

[mvd10]

FvD and Leefbaar Rotterdam (local right-wing party in Rotterdam) want to reinstate the "vestigingswet" (a law that required starting businesses to have special licenses). It was repealed in 2007 because it reduced competition and increased prices, but FvD and Leefbaar Rotterdam want to reinstate it because there barely are any ethnic Dutch shops anymore (so they basically see it as a backdoors method to reduce the amount of Moroccan/Turkish shops). And they call themselves right-wing . Cucks.

[mvd10]

Defence Minister Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert (VVD) just resigned. Chief of Defence Tom Middendorp also will resign. It's not clear what this means for Hennis-Plasschaert's political future. It's possible that she returns in a different position in a couple of weeks (Rutte 3), but it's unlikely because of the short amount of time between this scandal and Rutte 3 (and I doubt she'll get Defence or Foreign Affairs after this).

[mvd10]

Omg yes pls. Van Baalen for PM!

But I don't think he'll ever be minister. He didn't get Defence in Rutte 2 or Foreign Affairs in Rutte 1 despite being very qualified for both imo (instead they went with a not very experienced MP for Defence and a random 65-year old dude for Foreign Affairs). I guess he was too vocal in his support for Verdonk during the 2006 leadership election? Or maybe he just is too Wassenaar/too right-wing (probably both).

[mvd10]

I think his main problem is his right-wing image. He was one of the few MP's who opposed throwing Verdonk out back in the day and his move to the European Parliament in 2009 looked an awful lot like a kick upstairs to prevent him from making any trouble.

[mvd10]

Former mayor of Amsterdam Eberhard van der Laan died of cancer aged 62. 3 weeks ago he resigned because he wanted to spend his remaining time with his family. A lot of people are shocked by this. Despite the PvdA being at it's nadir van der Laan always remained very popular in Amsterdam.

The coalition agreement likely will be presented next Tuesday. It looks like Rutte 3 will pursue comprehensive tax reform. The corporate tax rate will be reduced from 25% to 21% (though this likely will be fully paid for by reducing the interest tax deduction and raising environmental taxes on businesses). The income tax will be changed in a so-called social flat tax. There will be a normal rate of 35-37% plus an extra surcharge of roughly 12% for income over 70k. Tax credits for lower incomes probably also will be increased. This all will be paid for by higher taxes on energy, an increase in the low VAT rate from 6% to 9% (the low VAT rate applies to food and labour intensive services) and further limiting the mortgage interest deduction. The net tax cut will be 5 billion euros. The middle-class (ugh, I feel so American when saying this) likely will benefit the most from this tax cut.

CU MP Joël Voordewind caused a bit of a stir when he said that it's unlikely that Hennis-Plasschaert will return as a minister in Rutte 3 (this damages Hennis-Plasschaert's image even more). Voordewind already has been identified as a possible troublemaker for Rutte 3 (remember, the coalition only has 76 seats). Voordewind is very principled and has vocal left-wing views on refugees and development aid which could clash with VVD and CDA.

[mvd10]

Yeah, we've known that the negotiations would succeed for a couple of weeks. It'll still take a week or 2 because there will be a few debates on the coalition agreement and Rutte needs to find ministers and state secretaries (this will be a pain for the VVD as they probably want a couple of women in prominent positions, but all of their prominent women basically are gone lol).

[mvd10]

I'm glad that the referendum will take place. I hope the law will be blocked, but I doubt it. There is quite a lot of support for measures that reduce privacy in the name of combatting terrorism.

Anyway, we still miss a lot of details. The standard tax credit and some child benefits will go up which mainly benefit lower earners btw, and the liberalization of employment termination doesn't go that far imo (it becomes easier to fire people for economic reasons, but the cap on redundancy payments imposed by labour courts also will be raised, and people will become eligible for redundancy payments immediately when they get a job instead of after 2 years in their job).

Anyway for a libertarianish person who doesn't really mind the EU a VVD-CDA-D66-CU coalition probably is the best realistic option, so I won't complain . I generally back the leaked government measures (including further liberalizing the labour market). Abolishing the referendum and getting rid of the property tax exemption look like bad ideas and the lack of focus on innovation/R&D bothers me but overall I'd be quite happy with this coalition.

Repealing the property tax exemption for people who paid of their mortgage can become an issue. Hans Wiegel (prominent former VVD leader) and some other former politicians already complained about it. Meanwhile some CDA pundits started to complain about Buma's new right-wing course. They criticized Buma for being too harsh on immigrants and following an economic policy that hurts the most vulnerable.

[mvd10]

Pechtold will remain parliamentary leader of D66 instead of joining the cabinet as a minister. Since the coalition has a very small majority (76 vs 74) having strong parliamentary leaders in order to keep rebellious MP's in check is very important. This also could be a sign that he doesn't expect the cabinet to last very long and wants to prepare for new elections for one more time (and then become a minister in his preferred VVD-CDA-D66-GL coalition).

[mvd10]

Buma also will remain in parliament as CDA parliamentary leader. I guess Bolkestein will be his role model. During Kok's first cabinet (PvdA-VVD-D66) Bolkestein was VVD leader and despite his party being in government he regularly attacked the government (especially on immigration and integration). This approach made him very popular and there were times when the VVD actually was ahead of the PvdA (they won the 1995 provincial elections and led the early polls for the 1998 elections despite being a junior partner).

[mvd10]

Yeah, Baudet is extremely good at publicity stunts. To be fair I was sceptical about the chances of a party that positions itself between VVD/CDA and PVV but apparently there is a lot of space.

Anyway, the full coalition agreement has been released, and the opposition parties have been very critical. FvD mainly criticized the abolition of the referendum while the left-wing parties criticized the economic plans. Asscher said the new coalition puts multinationals over people (dude was deputy PM of one of the world's biggest tax havens for 5 years lol) while Jesse Klaver criticized the corporate tax cut and claimed the new government would increase inequality. 50PLUS called it an anti-elderly government and Wilders called the coalition agreement a monster. The only other party that seems remotely positive is the SGP which praised decisions to cut taxes and spend more on Defence (but even they criticized some aspects of the coalition agreement).

Overall it seems like the opposition definitely won't play nice and if I were Rutte I'd hope that VVD-CDA-D66-CU-SGP wins a majority in the provincial/senate elections (or that they can enact the most important provisions of the coalition agreement before the senate elections). Tax reform is scheduled to happen in 2019 though, and that seems like the most important thing the coalition will do.

The dividend tax also will be repealed btw. Currently only foreign shareholders have to pay it (as businesses/households who owe taxes in the Netherlands get a rebate for this). This tax has been criticized by both tax specialists (because it makes the Netherlands less competitive) and the EU (because it might be illegal according to EU laws). But opponents of the plan claim this only directly benefits foreign investors and that this also will make the Netherlands even more attractive as a tax haven (the Netherlands is a notorious corporate tax haven).

The coalition will introduce a tax on royalty payments though. Because royalty payments are tax-free in the Netherlands a lot of famous artists shelter their wealth here. Personally I back both measures, the dividend tax really hurts Dutch businesses but I also don't really see a reason why the Netherlands should be Mick Jagger's tax haven .

We already knew almost everything about the coalition agreement anyway. Overall households will see a 5.2 billion tax cut, businesses would face a negligible tax increase of 100 million euros (mainly because of higher environmental taxes for businesses I suppose). But the CPB doesn't count the dividend tax repeal as a tax cut for businesses (instead they count it as a tax cut for foreign taxpayers). If you count the dividend tax repeal as a business tax cut businesses also would get a sizable tax cut (the dividend tax repeal costs 1.4 billion euros).

[mvd10]

Halbe Zijlstra said he prefers to become minister of either Social Affairs (to reform the labour market) or Foreign Affairs. I'm not sure if he has any relevant qualifications for the Foreign Affairs spot but I suppose he wouldn't be the first non-diplomat to become Foreign Affairs minister. And since Hennis-Plasschaert probably won't return in the next cabinet I can see this happen. They really should just appoint Han ten Broeke tbh, but I'd be happy with Zijlstra. Apparently he is quite a hawk, he even criticized the Iran deal (which wasn't really controversial in Europe as far as I know).

[mvd10]

It's true that the coalition will spend a huge amount of money (and in the future further budget cuts and/or tax increases will once again be necessary if you want to balance the budget). The tax reform also wasn't as comprehensive as it could/should have been. On the business side it's quite ambitious but on the personal side a huge amount of deductions will remain (like David already said). The low VAT rate also remains (while almost every economist wants an uniform rate). According to the CPB the fiscal plans of the coalition won't even increase employment (changes in government spending would slightly boost labor participation though). I think the CPB underestimates the effects of an income tax cut on labor participation though, and they also don't model the economic effects of corporate tax cuts or investments in education anymore because of budget constraints. But the results still are very underwhelming, especially if you compare it to the results the VVD election manifesto got .

Anyway, I've read the CPB analysis now and I must say that I'm actually quite disappointed. I was happy with the things that leaked out, but the increase in government spending is huge (and not just on defence and education), I expected better from the VVD. Meanwhile it looks like R&D/innovation isn't a top priority for the new coalition and even the tax plan isn't that great. I guess I should be happy with the business tax cuts and labour market reform but I expected better (then again, by Dutch standards I'm a raging libertarian lol).

Map of government support in the election:

The coalition agreement is named "Trust in the future" and of course these four parties are largely supported by those who do have "trust in the future", as the map shows too.

Personally I am mainly happy that the coalition will not just "watch over the shop" but has dared to make real choices, from the environment to the tax system, immigration and drugs. It contains some disappointing elements (the referendum, the increase in VAT), but is generally a step in the right direction, though obviously not as big a step as I would like.

The coalition also received a lot of support in religious areas (which voted for CDA, CU and SGP obviously) and while these areas are by no means poor I don't associate these areas with happy nice guy ff cosmopolitanism. But it's true that this coalition is mainly supported by wealthy and highly educated voters. According to de Hond's poll VVD-CDA-D66-CU won 70% of wealthy voters and 61% of highly educated voters (and just 50% of the general populace). The coalition also has large majorities in the wealthiest municipalities, but that mainly is because of the VVD vote. Top 5 wealthiest municipalities (out of 388) = top 5 VVD municipalities (though not the same order).

[mvd10]

Barbara Visser has potential, but I think she'll be state secretary of something first. Herna Verhagen (PostNL CEO) also has been mentioned and she looks like an excellent candidate. But I doubt she wants to become minister of Infrastructure as Infrastructure will be a fairly low position in the next cabinet (as Environment probably will go to the new Climate position).

I&O poll (junk, but could be true anyway): in the referendum next year, 50% currently intend to vote for the new espionage law, 30% oppose it and 20% don't know. However, support has decreased from 60% to 50% in the last few weeks.

By party (for/against/don't know):
VVD: 80/10/10
PVV: 57/23/20
CDA: 65/15/20
D66: 48/35/17
GL: 21/49/30
SP: 31/49/20
PvdA: 47/25/28
FvD: 32/47/21

CU, PvdD, 50Plus, SGP and DENK: not enough respondents.

Junk pollster and a lot may still change, but this seems to be the first serious poll on this, so I decided to write on it anyway.

On the coalition formation, I actually think Barbara Visser (VVD) could become the new Infrastructure Minister.

D66 voters support this law lol. What happened to D66? First the referendum and now this. They've become the epitome of the establishment they once rebelled against.

How did that CU-SGP divergence take place? CU's predecessor parties don't seem that different from the SGP. I.e. they were affiliated with very conservative Reformed churches.

On economic issues they probably grew closer to each other as CU's predecessors were really left-wing on economic issues while CU decided to ditch the whole Christian Social thing a couple of years ago (they're still to the left of VVD/CDA/D66 on economic issues, but not by much). And on things like climate change or immigration the CU and it's predecessors always were to the left of the SGP as far as I know.

On social issues the CU became more progressive, but we also shouldn't forget that the SGP also moved to the left on those. The SGP used to be really anti-Catholic. The founder of the SGP described Catholics as "the true enemy", they made rather anti-Catholic comments as recently as 2001 and they even voted against royal marriages with Catholics. They only voted for the marriage between Queen Maxima and King Willem-Alexander under heavy pressure of PM Kok (and only after Kok guaranteed them that the children would be Protestants and Maxima would consider becoming a Protestant herself). But now they're actually courting socially conservative Catholic voters, something which would have been unheard of in the past (though running Catholic candidates still is a bridge too far for them). The SGP's stance on women in politics also gradually shifted. They only fully accepted female suffrage in 1989, women were allowed to become full members in 2006 and since 2013 women are allowed to run for office as SGP candidates.

I think the possibility of government participation and the desire to be more than a testimonial party is what made the CU less principled. Not long after the fusion there were discussions on a CDA-VVD minority cabinet with CU and SGP support. These talks failed largely because a lot of VVD politicians (and even some CDA politicians) weren't comfortable with the very socially conservative views of those parties. 3 years later the CU platform was a lot more moderate and they managed to enter government (CDA-PvdA-CU).

[mvd10]

Wopke Hoekstra (CDA) will become the next Finance Minister according to Het Financieele Dagblad. Wouter Koolmees was the D66 candidate, but he will get another position. Hoekstra is member of the senate and Partner at McKinsey (being senator is a part-time job).

The new coalition will have 16 Ministers and 8 State Secretaries. The Healthcare, Economic Affairs, Education and Security & Justice departments will get an additional Minister. In the case of Healthcare and Education it wouldn't change much though, they already had very powerful State Secretaries, the new Minister will basically have the same tasks as the State Secretary. The Security & Justice department will have a Security Minister and a Justice Minister, this probably is a good thing as the workload for the Security & Justice Minister was huge. The Economic Affairs Ministry probably also will get an additional Minister (there currently is one Economic Affairs Minister, but it will be split into a Climate Minister and an Agriculture Minister) but I'm reading conflicting stories on this.

There also will be new State Secretaries for Immigration and Defence (and probably for Foreign Affairs as well). CDA MP and ex-soldier Raymond Knops probably will become the new Defence Minister.

Anyway, Halbe Zijlstra also looks like a great fit for the new Security Minister, but he already said he prefers to be either Social Affairs Minister or Foreign Affairs Minister, and he wouldn't have said this if he didn't know that he atleast was being heavily considered for those positions. Then again, he initially said that he wanted to be Social Affairs Minister and now it looks like he definitely won't get that post (CU MP Schouten is the heavy favorite while D66 MP Koolmees also is a contender after getting passed over for Finance), so maybe he's just bluffing. Usually potential Ministers keep their mouths shut about their preferred cabinet position and we'll see the reason why if Zijlstra doesn't get the job he wants .

[mvd10]

Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert just confirmed that she won't return in Rutte 3 as a Minister. Instead she will
become an MP again.