THE HAGUE: The Liberal winners of Dutch elections yesterday categorically rejected a left-wing bloc joining government, a move that could critically weaken the pro-Europe poll winners’ commitment to austerity.
Prime Minister Mark Rutte said while he was willing to form a government with the center-left Labor party that came second in Wednesday’s election, it was out of the question for the Socialists (SP) to also join such a coalition.
“It would be impossible for the (Liberal) VVD to take part in a cabinet with the SP and the (Labor) PvdA,” the pro-business Rutte said after meeting mediator Henk Kamp who has been appointed to explore coalition possibilities.
The victory by Rutte’s VVD was a boost for centrist pro-Europe parties at the expense of eurosceptic populists such as Geert Wilders’ far-right PVV party.
While not as extreme as Wilders, who wants to leave the EU and the eurozone, the Socialists are opposed to transferring further responsibility to Brussels and to the European Stability Mechanism (ESM).
Together VVD and Labor have 79 seats, a majority in the 150-seat Parliament but the coalition will likely want more partners who will ultimately have some say in The Hague’s attitude towards Brussels.
But Labor leader Diederik Samsom, a former Greenpeace activist who enjoyed a stellar rise in polls on the back of his performance in televised debates, said that the Socialists “must” join any expanded Liberal-Labor coalition.
“I advised to start exploring the possibility of at least the VVD and the Labor Party” forming a coalition, Samsom said after talks with mediator Kamp.
“I said that there could be reasons for more parties to be involved, and if so then I think that in any case the SP must be involved,” Samsom said.
However Socialist leader Roemer said after his talks with the mediator that such coalition would be a pointless exercise given that the parties were ideologically “miles apart”.
“I told him that I think that a government with PvdA and the VVD is a pointless exercise, because I think that these parties, according to their programs, are so far apart,” Roemer told journalists after meeting Kamp.
n FROM: Agence France Presse
Dutch vote winner Rutte nixes left-bloc coalition
