First Rutte cabinet


The First Rutte cabinet, also called the Rutte–Verhagen cabinet was the cabinet of the Netherlands from 14 October 2010 until 5 November 2012. The cabinet was formed by the political parties People's Party for Freedom and Democracy and the Christian Democratic Appeal after the election of 2010. The right-wing cabinet was a minority government in the House of Representatives but was supported by the Party for Freedom for a majority. It was the first of three cabinets of Mark Rutte, the Leader of the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy as Prime Minister, with Maxime Verhagen the Leader of the Christian Democratic Appeal serving as Deputy Prime Minister.

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 the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy, Christian Democratic Appeal and the Labour Party was briefly looked at, but dismissed. Then negotiations for a "purple plus" coalition consisting of the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy, Labour Party, Democrats 66 and GreenLeft 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 the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy and Christian Democratic Appeal, supported in parliament by the Party for Freedom , to make the smallest possible majority of 76 seats. The right wing PVV had the largest gains in the recent elections.
The stated reason for this construction was that parties agreed that the largest party and the party with the largest gains needed to be in power. Only the Christian Democratic Appeal could or wanted to help make a majority, but they were against forming a proper coalition with Party for Freedom because of their different views on Islam and immigration. Therefore, negotiations were held to form a coalition agreement between the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy and Christian Democratic Appeal, and to form a "parliamentary support agreement" between all three parties, which were successfully finished on 30 September 2010.
When Rutte took office on 14 October, it marked the first time that the VVD had led a government since its formation in 1946. It also marked the first liberal-led government since 1913.
Opposition parties and commentators expected that the coalition would prove to be unstable because at a special Christian Democratic Appeal conference, about a third of the party members voted against the formation of this cabinet. Also, at least three members of parliament in the CDA parliamentary fraction indicated to have difficulties with the cabinet. Eventually they left the parliament or supported the deal, pointing to the approval by the majority of the party conference.
When the cabinet took office, the three parties had a minority in the Senate of 35 out of 75 seats. The parties hoped this would change following the Dutch Senate election of 2011, but they obtained 37 seats, one short of a majority. A small protestant party, the Reformed Political Party, which obtained one seat, supported the cabinet in the Senate however.
The cabinet consisted of 12 Ministers and 8 State secretaries. The positions where divided equally among the coalition members, regardless of their respective size: People's Party for Freedom and Democracy supplied 6 Ministers and 4 State secretaries, and Christian Democratic Appeal also supplied 6 Ministers and 4 State secretaries.
and Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Nick Clegg in the Torentje on 15 November 2010.
and United States Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano in The Hague on 22 June 2011.
and Prime Minister of Vietnam Nguyễn Tấn Dũng at the Binnenhof on 28 September 2011.
and Prime Minister of Russia Vladimir Putin in the White House on 20 October 2011.
and President of the United States Barack Obama in the Oval Office on 29 November 2011.
Elio Di Rupo and Prime Minister Mark Rutte at a press conference in the Catshuis on 18 January 2012.

Term

Policy

In accordance with the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy approach to laissez-faire and a small government, 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 a combined Ministry Economic Affairs, Agriculture and Innovation. The Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment was merged with the Ministry of Transport and Water Management to form the new Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment.
The portfolio of public security was transferred from the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations to the Ministry of Justice which was renamed as the Ministry of Security and Justice, in line with the tough security profile of the coalition parties, especially the VVD which delivered both the minister and state secretary for this department. Also the position of the Minister for Development Cooperation, a long serving Minister without portfolio title that had been used continuously since 1965, was scrapped and replaced by the return of a Minister without portfolio for Immigration and Asylum Affairs like in the previous Cabinets Balkenende I, II and III, but this time this post was placed at the department and budget of the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations instead of the Ministry of Security and Justice.

Withdrawal of support of the Party for Freedom

Because of the financial crisis in the Netherlands and because of the rules of the Euro convergence criteria that the deficit should be maximum 3%, the Leaders of the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy Mark Rutte, Christian Democratic Appeal Maxime Verhagen and the Party for Freedom Geert Wilders decided to talk with each other about new, severe austerity measures, worth about 14 billion Euro. The negotiations about the measures were held in the Catshuis and lasted 7 weeks and ended on 21 April when Geert Wilders walked out of the negotiations. The reason he gave was that the measure would negatively impact people who receive benefits from the pensions law. Both Mark Rutte and Maxime Verhagen blamed Wilders for the failure of the negotiations. As a result, the government resigned and a new election was called.

Composition Changes

On 16 December 2011 Minister of the Interior and Kingdom Relations Piet Hein Donner resigned after he was nominated as the new Vice-President of the Council of State succeeding Herman Tjeenk Willink. He was replaced as Minister of the Interior and Kingdom Relations by former Chairwoman of the Christian Democratic Appeal Liesbeth Spies. Piet Hein Donner as Minister of the Interior and Kingdom Relations was responsible for the portfolio of Integration. When he resigned the Integration portfolio was transferred to Minister without portfolio Gerd Leers.

Cabinet Members

Trivia