A debate over the budget and new tax measures has triggered a serious crisis among coalition partners in the Netherlands, casting doubt on the survival of the government led by Rob Jetten.
To prevent the cabinet from collapsing, the prime minister has extended talks with his allies into the weekend. The effort follows a meeting on Friday that lasted more than seven hours but ended without an agreement.
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Jetten’s centrist D66, the center-right CDA and the right-wing People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) have taken opposing positions in the debate over the budget plan and the new fiscal package.
One element of the proposed compromise calls for higher taxes on returns from savings and investments. The plan stipulates that income from assets exceeding €60,000 would be taxed at a rate of 38.5%. PRO leader Jesse Klaver views this as a tax targeting millionaires.
Tensions deepened on Thursday evening when the tax package passed Parliament by a narrow margin. Its approval was made possible after D66 and CDA lawmakers voted in favor of several amendments put forward by PRO and Volt, two center-left opposition parties.
The agreement faced fierce opposition from the VVD, which voted against the fiscal proposal put forward by the government of which it is a member. The party’s leader, Dilan Yeşilgöz-Zegerius, said she had been presented with a deal about which she had received no advance notice.
At the close of Friday’s talks, Jetten announced that, at least for the time being, the three political parties would continue working together. Yeşilgöz, however, described the minority coalition as an effort that had failed and stressed that continuing in the same way was not possible.
She said the agreement binding the governing partners needed a thorough overhaul. Jetten also acknowledged the need for a serious reset to get the coalition working again.
The prime minister said recent days had brought many positive developments, but also actions that had not gone as they should, emphasizing the need to do better. He also confirmed that negotiations would continue in the coming days.
The crisis has raised the possibility of early elections, just nine months after Jetten’s government took office. According to polls cited in the reporting, Jesse Klaver’s left-wing PRO could emerge as the leading party in a new vote, followed by Geert Wilders.
These developments have once again put the spotlight on political fragility in the Netherlands, where four general elections have been held over the past decade. Although Jetten, the youngest head of government in the country’s history, had promised to usher in a new era of political cooperation, maintaining unity among his allies has so far proved difficult.
