Politics and Elections in the Netherlands: coalition agreement presented

[mileslunn]

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.

I think economic issues.  SGP is your Christian fundamentalists while CU is more social Christian.  They are socially conservative, but economically CU leans left unlike SGP.

[DavidB.]

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.

[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.

[jeron]

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.

RPF and GPV were indeed linked to orthodox Reformed churches. After the merger of RPF and GPV, CU gradually became less conservative in order to appeal to members of pentecostal and baptist churches.

[jeron]

Great that elected mayors are finally a thing. Will it be indirect through majorities in council (hopefully) or presidential contests? Also quite happy to see the referendum law go; really hate this "collect signatures online, get referendum".

The first is already the case. Officially mayors are appointed by the King based on a suggestion of the King's Commissioner in a province, but in practice municipal councils nowadays vote on it on secret ballot (we usually don't even know which other candidates applied and lost) and the King's Commissioner will simply pick the one approved by the municipal council. The proposed change is that the Constitution will no longer include an article on the appointment of mayors by the King, leaving open the possibility to elect them directly, which is what D66 wants. But this can only happen if a qualified majority in parliament supports the process: 76 seats is not enough. And for the constitutional revision to take place, a simple majority in the next parliament should support it too in order fo the change to come into effect.

D66 already initiated a proposal during the previous parliamentary period, which was approved by both chambers. If parliament approves it with a qualified majority now, it becomes law and the changes take effect.

[mvd10]

Peil.nl released another weekly poll. They polled the coalition agreement and it looks like most of the plans are supported. The least popular plan is increasing the VAT to pay for income tax cuts which is only supported by VVD voters. Repealing the dividend tax and reduces corporate taxes also aren't very popular, but they still score decently (especially with VVD voters).

They also looked at the differences between people who voted for VVD/CDA/D66 in March but would vote for a different party now. People who voted VVD in March bute would vote for something else today are much more supportive of referendums (VVD-FvD voters I suppose), the same goes for CDA voters. D66 voters who left mainly left because the next coalition won't pass a new euthanasia law.

They also did a poll on Rutte's approval rating, it's 44% (which is quite decent, I suspect he was much lower in 2013/2014). The most surprising thing is that only 42% of CDA voters approves of Rutte. This probably is because of Buma's hard opposition to Rutte 2 and his recent criticisms of liberalism and individualism. The poll last week also showed that CDA voters were much more likely to agree with statements like "market liberalization has gone too far" or "the pension age should be reduced to 65" than VVD or even D66 voters. It seems like Buma has transformed the party into a more nationalist and conservative party which is critical of both left-wing social policies and laissez-faire capitalism. Electorally this probably is a smart thing (as there is a lot of electoral space for these policies) but it looks like it wasn't enough to prevent CDA voters from leaving to FvD.

[mvd10]

Halbe Zijlstra (currently VVD parliamentary leader) will become Foreign Affairs Minister while Eric Wiebes (also VVD, currently State Secretary of Finance) will become Economic Affairs and Climate Minister according to De Telegraaf. Especially Wiebes' appointment is surprising as one would have expected D66 or CU to claim the Climate Ministry because of their green credentials.

[DavidB.]

Absolutely great news. No D66 activist on Climate and a hawk on Foreign Affairs -- much better than Hennis too, who would have gotten it if not for the Mali scandal. The VVD have certainly managed to strike a very good deal in terms of ministries, and that's good for the country. D66 will have a difficult time explaining this to their voters, though... wondering which ministry goes to Ollongren now.

[Dutch Conservative]

Absolutely great news. No D66 activist on Climate and a hawk on Foreign Affairs -- much better than Hennis too, who would have gotten it if not for the Mali scandal. The VVD have certainly managed to strike a very good deal in terms of ministries, and that's good for the country. D66 will have a difficult time explaining this to their voters, though... wondering which ministry goes to Ollongren now.

Perhaps education? Wich will mean more money and power to the schoolboards instead of the teachers I guess (says a teacher).

[mvd10]

Ollongren probably will get Education or something like that. Maybe even Interior. I've heard that people in Amsterdam aren't terribly enthusiastic about her, so that probably explains why she'll get a second tier Ministry. I think Wouter Koolmees' future position is more interesting, he was D66's candidate for the Finance Ministry so they clearly see something in him.

Anyway, I'm not really sure whether Wiebes at Climate will make a huge difference. People always say that personnel is policy, but the coalition agreement is quite clear on climate issues. Wiebes also is one of the more left-wing VVD politicians (like Winsemius or Nijpels, his predecessors as VVD climate/environment ministers) so he's probably pretty close to D66. Anyway, I'm somewhat progressive on environmental issues so I don't really care (though I oppose GL's radical changes and tax increases I support a green tax shift and investing in clean energy).

Ideologically I should be thrilled with someone like Zijlstra at Foreign Affairs (like David said: he's quite a hawk), but I wonder why they didn't just appoint ten Broeke. Ten Broeke is extremely qualified for the role and I don't think his foreign policy views are much different from Zijlstra's (I've read his article on foreign policy). Meanwhile Zijlstra doesn't really have any foreign policy experience. Anyway, I shouldn't complain. Atleast it's not Kaag or Stienen (D66). And being Foreign Affairs Minister probably helps Zijlstra's chances to be the next VVD leader, but that doesn't really matter because the other candidate (Dijkhoff) is just as awesome .

[DavidB.]

Absolutely great news. No D66 activist on Climate and a hawk on Foreign Affairs -- much better than Hennis too, who would have gotten it if not for the Mali scandal. The VVD have certainly managed to strike a very good deal in terms of ministries, and that's good for the country. D66 will have a difficult time explaining this to their voters, though... wondering which ministry goes to Ollongren now.

Perhaps education? Wich will mean more money and power to the schoolboards instead of the teachers I guess (says a teacher).

I completely agree. I've given up my hopes for real, meaningful changes in the education system: fewer managers, fewer marketing nonsense, back to the basics, and more money for teachers. People have been saying it for decades now, but it seems as if nothing ever changes, and PvdA, VVD, CDA and D66 are all guilty.

As for Ten Broeke, it is clear that he would be the better pick, but in the world of the VVD Zijlstra "deserved" it and Ten Broeke hasn't. Hope the latter doesn't resign. Today must be about the worst day in his career.

[mvd10]

I wouldn't be surprised if Ten Broeke goes to Brussels in 2019 as MEP (just like Hans van Baalen in 2009). He would be a great addition to the Foreign Affairs Committee there. He could still become State Secretary btw. Probably not Foreign Affairs as there already is a VVD Minister there (and parties usually don't get both the State Secretary and the Minister) but if Defence goes to the CDA he could be State Secretary of Defence. Or he could even become Defence Minister, but that's also unlikely as it's very rare for 1 party to hold both the Defence and Foreign Affairs portfolio (just like the economic portfolios are divided pretty evenly between the coalition partners).

[Diouf]

And being Foreign Affairs Minister probably helps Zijlstra's chances to be the next VVD leader, but that doesn't really matter because the other candidate (Dijkhoff) is just as awesome .

Maybe I've missed it in the thread, but will Dijkhoff keep an important position in the new cabinet? Danish Minister of Immigration Inger Støjberg has talked about a close relationsship with him and the Belgian Immigration Minister Theo Francken, so I guess he is among the hardliners in VVD on immigration?

[mvd10]

And being Foreign Affairs Minister probably helps Zijlstra's chances to be the next VVD leader, but that doesn't really matter because the other candidate (Dijkhoff) is just as awesome .

Maybe I've missed it in the thread, but will Dijkhoff keep an important position in the new cabinet? Danish Minister of Immigration Inger Støjberg has talked about a close relationsship with him and the Belgian Immigration Minister Theo Francken, so I guess he is among the hardliners in VVD on immigration?

Dijkhoff will be parliamentary leader of the VVD, a position which allows him to stay in the spotlight and raise his profile. Zijlstra was parliamentary leader from 2012 to 2017 and regularly made headlines with right-wing statements (and pre-Dijkhoff he and Schippers were the main candidates to take over from Rutte), and his work got rewarded with the Foreign Affairs portfolio.

I'm not sure whether I'd call Dijkhoff a hardliner on immigration/asylum, but the VVD is pretty right-wing on those issues anyway (or they pretend to be in their campaigns) so it's quite logical that Dijkhoff is closely allied to Francken and the Danish Minister on asylum issues.

Zijlstra definitely is one of the most right-wing VVD politicians there is. I expect him to push for more "Turkey-deals" with African countries in order to reduce asylum flows to Europe. I'm not sure what CU and D66 think about this appointment, Zijlstra will probably pursue a more realist foreign policy and he definitely will make some comments that will make the more leftist elements of CU and D66 cringe.

[mvd10]

The youth wing of the CDA criticized the coalition agreement and said that they won't support the coalition unless student loans are replaced with study grants (like we used to have). CDJA said that it's unacceptable that foreign investors get a 1.5 billion tax cut through the repeal of the dividend tax while students have to take out huge loans to pay for their tuition.

[rant]Since the next coalition will increase spending by a huge amount (8 billion euros, which is more than the planned tax cut) I think it makes more sense to slow down those huge spending increases instead of not repealing a horribly inefficient (and probably illegal) tax, especially if you are a member of a party that ferociously opposed a left-wing coalition. But that's just my neoliberal opinion.[/rant]

Anyway, it does surprise me how this coalition manages to splurge 14 billion euros (!) while still pissing off a lot of people by not fulfilling their election promises. It's just never enough .

[DavidB.]

And being Foreign Affairs Minister probably helps Zijlstra's chances to be the next VVD leader, but that doesn't really matter because the other candidate (Dijkhoff) is just as awesome .

Maybe I've missed it in the thread, but will Dijkhoff keep an important position in the new cabinet? Danish Minister of Immigration Inger Støjberg has talked about a close relationsship with him and the Belgian Immigration Minister Theo Francken, so I guess he is among the hardliners in VVD on immigration?

Dijkhoff is definitely not as much of a hardliner as Støjberg and Francken, but, as mvd10 already said, the VVD has moved quite a bit to the right on that issue in general.

[Zinneke]

The youth wing of the CDA criticized the coalition agreement and said that they won't support the coalition unless student loans are replaced with study grants (like we used to have). CDJA said that it's unacceptable that foreign investors get a 1.5 billion tax cut through the repeal of the dividend tax while students have to take out huge loans to pay for their tuition.

[rant]Since the next coalition will increase spending by a huge amount (8 billion euros, which is more than the planned tax cut) I think it makes more sense to slow down those huge spending increases instead of not repealing a horribly inefficient (and probably illegal) tax, especially if you are a member of a party that ferociously opposed a left-wing coalition. But that's just my neoliberal opinion.[/rant]

Anyway, it does surprise me how this coalition manages to splurge 14 billion euros (!) while still pissing off a lot of people by not fulfilling their election promises. It's just never enough .

During the "leaks" it was said that the tuition fee would be cut to around 1 grand for the first year, which sounds like a fair policy given its the most important year and after that you can work part time without as much stress. What happened to this?

[rant] Also, Bruma repeatedly said during the election that the Bachelor grant would be made free again. Surely with D66 they could have forced VVD's hand? And now they write open letters to Henk Kroll about how they are defending the boomer generation!

tsjeven...[/rant]

[mvd10]

Tuition fees for first-year students will be cut in half, but it's still relatively meagre compared to what CDA promised during the campaign. D66 is one of the biggest supporters of the current student loan system btw, so don't expect much changes from them.

[mvd10]

Other Ministers also have leaked:

D66 Alderwoman in Amsterdam Kajsa Ollongren, for Interior and Deputy PM
CU MP Carola Schouten for Healthcare and Deputy PM
CDA Alderman in Rotterdam Hugo de Jonge for Elderly Care and Deputy PM
CDA King's Commissioner (head of provincial government) in Overijssel, Ank Bijleveld for Defence
CDA lawyer and professor Ferdinand Grapperhaus for Justice
VVD State Secretary of Education Sander Dekker for Security (this one isn't 100% certain yet)
D66 MP Wouter Koolmees for Social Affairs
CU Mayor of Deventer Andries Heidema for Agriculture (also not 100% certain)

This also is an interesting interview with Ferdinand Grapperhaus. He seems to be quite critical of market liberalization and deregulation. But it won't really matter as he won't get an economic portfolio. It's from the Reformatorisch Dagblad so it's not available on Sundays (don't worry, they're quite good). I won't bother to translate it in Dutch btw, google translate is your best friend .

If we fill in the blanks we get something like this:

VVD
PM: Mark Rutte
Foreign Affairs: Halbe Zijlstra
Economic Affairs: Eric Wiebes
Security: Sander Dekker
Education #1:
Infrastructure:
CDA
Elderly Care & Deputy PM: Hugo de Jonge
Finance: Wopke Hoekstra
Defence: Ank Bijleveld
Justice: Ferdinand Grapperhaus
D66
Interior & Deputy PM: Kajsa Ollongren
Social Affairs: Wouter Koolmees
Education #2: Probably Ingrid van Engelshoven
International Trade & Development Aid:
CU
Healthcare & Deputy PM: Carola Schouten
Agriculture: Andries Heidema

EDIT: omg I finally know how to get the smiley. I'm so happy now . I didn't know 3x ? gave you , so it was an accident

[DavidB.]

Really ridiculous that we get another Minister of Defense without any experience here whatsoever. But who cares if real soldiers die as long as party foot soldiers get jobs, right? Knops should have gotten this.

Sigrid Kaag will probably get Trade & Aid.

[mvd10]

I doubt Kaag would bother leaving her current UN job for Development Aid. Maybe she would have done it for Foreign Affairs, but Development Aid would be a huge step down. I think Petra Stienen is more likely (also D66). They'll surely find some random diplomat for the post (how many diplomats vote D66? 90% of them or so?).

Apparently Bijleveld has done a good job in Overijssel, but I agree that they should have appointed someone with experience there as Defence Minister. Someone like Raymond Knops or even my boy Han ten Broeke (he is chair of the parliamentary Defence Committee). Bijleveld would have been a good pick for Interior or even Security though.

Some reports from yesterday turned out to be false (or maybe the reports from today are false?). Now they say that Carola Schouten (CU) will get Agriculture while Slob (also CU) will get Education #2. I'm inclined to believe today's reports, Heidema (CU, mentioned yesterday) doesn't really have an obvious link with Agriculture and Schouten and Slob have been constantly mentioned as CU Ministerial candidates since March. I assume this means Healthcare will go to the VVD instead of Education (which now goes to Slob).

Malik Azmani probably will become State Secretary of Immigration, and he definitely is a hardliner on these issues. Francken and the Danish Minister won't lose their Dutch ally .

[DavidB.]

Completely agree with your sentiments as usual. It has now been confirmed that Carola Schouten will be Deputy PM and Minister of Agriculture, Food Safety and the Regions. Arie Slob will be the second minister at Education, Culture and Sciences, responsible for primary education, secondary education and the public broadcaster. Culture and sciences will go to Education #1, probably someone in D66 (Van Engelshoven?).

Somewhat disappointed that Schouten will not get Social Affairs or at least Healthcare. CU haven't gotten a particularly good deal with the ministries...

Rumor has it that Cora van Nieuwenhuizen, VVD MEP and former MP, will get Infrastructure portfolio, which, for some reason, has historically very often gone to a woman. After mvd10's comments I would have preferred Herna Verhagen here, but it is what it is...

[mvd10]

Our new CDA (!) Minister of Justice seems to have a very #woke Twitter account lol.

(zo is het = that's how it is)

He reminds me of my old social science teacher in high school. The man was so obviously left-wing on everything but he somehow voted CDA. It seems like we've found the Dutch version of Badger (assuming his Republican avatar indeed is unironical).

There also are some interesting tweets about Rutte (comparing his austerity policies to sh**tty tape), Pechtold ("political weather vane"), Wilders (illiterate), far-right voters (also illiterate) and Grolsch beer (assholes without compassion who are even more tasteless than the beer they brew). I hope he continues tweeting .