For his fourth term, the Liberal Prime Minister had to accept the requirements of his partners, including the Social Liberal Party D66. He formed a quasi-joint team in the genre of twenty ministers and nine secretaries of state.
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If he goes to the end of his fourth government experience, Mark Rutte, 54, will beat all longevity records in the Netherlands, having been prime minister from 2010 to 2025. Will he succeed? In doubts of many observers in The Hague, the Liberal leader opposes his usual carelessness: Monday, January 3, he spoke of a “new momentum” and said “optimistic” as to the success of his new coalition. Even if it is, in fact, that the version difficult to renew the preceding.
To overcome the ambient skepticism, Mr. Rutte will govern with a largely reworked team of twenty ministers and nine Secretaries of State that, in accordance with tradition, he receives one by one since Monday, before the presentation of the Government to King Willem -Axander and its official induction, January 10th.
Relative loss of influence
First characteristics of “Rutte IV”: half of the ministers will be women and, in total, the team will be almost parity in terms of gender, with 52% men and 48% women. In addition, two important portfolios will be entrusted to personalities from immigration: that of justice at the Liberal Dilan Yesilgöz, born in Ankara, and the protection of rights to Franc Weerwind, a member of the Social Liberal Party D66, from a family from Surinam.
Presented in mid-December, after nine months of discussions, the Coalition Program is a reflection of a relative loss of influence of Mr. Rutte, even if he once again led his party to the Victory in March 2021. Destaborized by the so-called “allowance” case, which had penalized thousands of families unjustly suspected of families’ benefit fraud, the head of government had to adopt a more social speech and Accept the requirements of its partners, including Sigrid Kaag, director of D66 and former Minister of Foreign Affairs.
This former 60-year-old diplomat will be the “moral guide” of this new team, judges the daily het parop. She could have claimed the succession of Mark Rutte but the management of his department of the evacuation of the Dutch and their staff from Afghanistan has attracted such criticisms that she had been forced to resign last September to following the vote of a motion of distrust by the second chamber.
Deputy Prime Minister and, from now on, Minister of Finance, this partisan of a “strong Europe”, whose party is a member of the RENEW group in the Parliament of Strasbourg, has made the Netherlands, until Here followers of a strict budget orthodoxy now speak of a necessary “modernization” of the rules of the European Stability Pact. What to delight the French Presidency of the Union that will note that D66 also made it that Mr. Rutte admits the principle of a carbon tax at the borders or the idea that trade and climate are not irreconcilable.
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