Rutte cabinet

Netherlands

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The Rutte cabinet is the current Dutch coalition cabinet formed by the political parties People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) and Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA). The coalition is a minority cabinet, but is supported by the Party for Freedom (PVV) to have a small majority in the House of Representatives of the Netherlands. The cabinet succeeded the fourth Balkenende cabinet following the Dutch general election of 2010, and was installed by Queen Beatrix on 14 October 2010.

VVD party leader Mark Rutte is Prime Minister of the Netherlands and Maxime Verhagen is Deputy Prime Minister of the Netherlands on behalf of the CDA. ^{[1] [2]}

Formation

Further information: 2010 Dutch cabinet formation

Following the collapse of the fourth Balkenende cabinet on 20 February 2010, elections for the House of Representatives were held on 9 June 2010. As usual in Dutch politics, none of the parties had a majority and several informateurs were appointed to investigate the formation of a coalition cabinet. A broad coalition consisting of VVD, CDA and the Labour Party (PvdA) was briefly looked at, but dismissed. Then negotiations for a "purple plus" coalition consisting of VVD, PvdA, Democrats 66 (D66) and GreenLeft (GL) lasted for about three weeks, but the parties could not reach agreement on the amount of budget cuts. Finally, a construction which is rare for the Netherlands was investigated: a minority coalition consisting of VVD and CDA (together 52 out of 150 seats in the House of Representatives), supported in parliament by the PVV (24 seats), to make the smallest possible majority of 76 seats. The reason for this construction was that parties agreed that the largest party (VVD) and the largest winner in the elections (PVV) needed to be in power; only the CDA could or wanted to help make a majority, but they were against forming a proper coalition with PVV because of their different views on Islam and immigration. Therefore, negotiations were held to form a coalition agreement between VVD and CDA, and to form a "parliamentary support agreement" between all three parties, which were successfully finished on 30 September 2010.

The opposition parties expect that the coalition will prove to be unstable^[3] because at a special CDA conference, about a third of the CDA members voted against the formation of this cabinet. Also, in the CDA parliamentary fraction at least two people indicated they have difficulties with the cabinet, but say they will support it because the majority of the party approves of the cabinet.

Cabinet Rutte

When the cabinet took office, the three parties had a minority in the Senate of the Netherlands of 35 out of 75 seats. The parties hoped this would change following the May 2011 elections for the Senate, but they obtained 37 seats, one short of a majority. However, it is expected that the small Christian party SGP, which obtained one seat, will support the cabinet in the Senate.^[4]

Composition

The cabinet consists of 12 ministers and 8 junior ministers (state secretaries). These positions are divided equally among the coalition members, regardless of their respective size: People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (31 seats in parliament) supplied 6 ministers and 4 state secretaries, and Christian Democratic Appeal (21 seats) also supplied 6 ministers and 4 state secretaries.

The number of ministers and state secretaries was reduced from the previous cabinet by merging several ministries: the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality was merged with the Ministry of Economic Affairs to form the new Ministry of Economic Affairs, Agriculture and Innovation; the Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment was merged with the Ministry of Transport, Public Works and Water Management to form the new Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment; some tasks of the Ministry of the Interior went to the Ministry of Justice, which was renamed the Ministry of Public Safety and Justice. Also the ministers without portfolio for Development Cooperation, for Youth and Family, and for Housing, Neighbourhoods and Integration were scrapped, the latter to be replaced by a minister without portfolio for Immigration and Asylum.

Position		Portfolio	Name	Party
	Prime Minister	General Affairs	Mark Rutte	VVD
	Deputy Prime Minister / Minister	Economic Affairs, Agriculture and Innovation	Maxime Verhagen	CDA
	Minister	Interior and Kingdom Relations	Piet Hein Donner	CDA
	Minister	Foreign Affairs	Uri Rosenthal	VVD
	Minister	Finance	Jan Kees de Jager	CDA
	Minister	Security and Justice	Ivo Opstelten	VVD
	Minister	Defence	Hans Hillen	CDA
	Minister	Education, Culture and Science	Marja van Bijsterveldt	CDA
	Minister	Infrastructure and the Environment	Melanie Schultz van Haegen	VVD
	Minister	Social Affairs and Employment	Henk Kamp	VVD
	Minister	Health, Welfare and Sport	Edith Schippers	VVD
	Minister without portfolio	Immigration and Asylum (within Interior and Kingdom Relations)	Gerd Leers	CDA
	State Secretary*	Foreign Affairs (European cooperation and Development cooperation)	Ben Knapen	CDA
	State Secretary*	Economic Affairs, Agriculture and Innovation (Agriculture, Nature, Food quality, Trade, Tourism, Postal affairs)	Henk Bleker	CDA
	State Secretary	Finance (Fiscal affairs, Finances of lower governments)	Frans Weekers	VVD
	State Secretary	Security and Justice (Prevention, Family law, Youth justice, Copyright law)	Fred Teeven	VVD
	State Secretary	Education, Culture and Science (Higher education, Science and Knowledge, Teachers, Culture)	Halbe Zijlstra	VVD
	State Secretary	Infrastructure and the Environment (Water policy, Environment, Aviation)	Joop Atsma	CDA
	State Secretary	Social Affairs and Employment (Unemployment insurances (partial), Equality, Long-term unemployment, Poverty, Health and Safety)	Paul de Krom	VVD
	State Secretary	Health, Welfare and Sport (Nursing and care, Elderly policy, Youth policy, Biotechnology)	Marlies Veldhuijzen van Zanten-Hyllner	CDA
* The state secretaries for Foreign Affairs and for Economic Affairs, Agriculture and Innovation are allowed to use a ministerial title while on foreign business.
Source: (NOS)

References

1. ^ (Dutch) 'Ministersposten kabinet-Rutte verdeeld'
2. ^ (Dutch) Kabinet Rutte-Verhagen: Vrijheid en Verantwoordelijkheid
3. ^ "Oppositie verwacht instabiel kabinet". Trouw. 5 October 2010. http://www.trouw.nl/nieuws/politiek/article3239085.ece/Oppositie_verwacht_instabiel_kabinet.html. Retrieved 20 October 2010. 
4. ^ Trouw, Kabinet kan door met gedoogsteun van SGP

See also

• 2010 Dutch cabinet formation

External links

• Cabinet at the Government of the Netherlands