Fourth Balkenende cabinet


The Fourth Balkenende cabinet was the cabinet of the Netherlands from 22 February 2007 until 14 October 2010. The cabinet was formed by the political parties Christian Democratic Appeal, Labour Party and the Christian Union after the election of 2006. The centre-left grand coalition cabinet was a majority government in the House of Representatives.

Formation

Following the fall of the Second Balkenende cabinet on 30 June 2006 the Democrats 66 left the coalition and the Christian Democratic Appeal and the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy formed a rump cabinet. The Third Balkenende cabinet was installed on 7 July 2006 and served as a caretaker government until the election of 2006 on 22 November 2006. After the election the Christian Democratic Appeal of incumbent Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende was the winner of the election but lost 3 seats and had now a total of 41 seats. The Labour Party of Wouter Bos lost 9 seats and had now 33 seats. The Socialist Party of Jan Marijnissen was the biggest winner with 16 new seats and had now 25 seats. Two new parties won representation in the House of Representatives, the recently founded Party for Freedom of Geert Wilders, a former Member of the House of Representatives for the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy won nine seats and the Party for the Animals of Marianne Thieme, a noted animal rights activist won two seats, the first time an animal advocacy party won representation in a national legislative body.
On 25 November 2006 Queen Beatrix appointed Member of the Council of State Rein Jan Hoekstra as Informateur. Hoekstra explored the possibilities for the different three party coalitions, since no two parties could form a majority in the House of Representatives together. This resulted in a coalition agreement between the Christian Democratic Appeal, Labour Party and the Christian Union, together these three parties had 79 seats out of 150 seats in the House of Representatives.
On 20 December 2006 Queen Beatrix appointed former Chairman of the Social-Economic Council Herman Wijffels as Informateur to start the second information round and negotiate a coalition agreement between the Leader of the Christian Democratic Appeal Jan Peter Balkenende, the Leader of the Labour Party Wouter Bos and the Leader of the Christian Union André Rouvoet. On 7 February 2007 a coalition was reached with the motto of the agreement: "Samen leven, samen werken". On 9 February 2007 Queen Beatrix appointed incumbent Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende as Formateur to start the last phase of the formation. On 22 February the cabinet members were sworn in by Queen Beatrix.
Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, President of the European Commission José Manuel Barroso and Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende in Toronto on 10 June 2010.

Term

Policy

The coalition agreement titled "Living together, working together" was presented on 7 February in a press conference by Balkenende, Bos, Rouvoet. It is structured into six commitments of the new cabinet. If a proposal was included in a party's electoral manifesto, this is mentioned as well.
In February 2010, NATO had officially requested the Netherlands to extend its military involvement in Task Force Uruzgan, the ISAF operation in the Afghan province of Uruzgan, aimed at training Afghan security forces and transfer of responsibilities to the local authorities. Coalition party PvdA strongly opposed the extension of the mission. The collision between the government and the parliament, of which the majority disagreed with an extension of the mission, as well as between the coalition partners in the cabinet, threatened the existence of the cabinet and led to its fall in the night between 19 and 20 February 2010, after 16 hours of deliberations between the cabinet members. The Labour members resigned from the cabinet.
As queen Beatrix was on holiday in Austria at the time, Balkenende informed her formally by phone about the break-up of the cabinet. She returned soon to The Hague and held consultations with advisors and with the leaders of all political groupings in parliament on 22 and 23 February. On the latter day, the queen accepted the resignations of the PvdA ministers and secretaries, and maintained the 15 remaining cabinet members of CDA and Christian Union to run a demissionary cabinet, which meant that it could not make large decisions or proposals on topics deemed controversial. No new cabinet members were appointed, the already functioning ministers and state secretaries taking care of the empty positions until a new government would be formed. Early elections were held on 9 June 2010. The cabinet formation started a day later.
Labour leader Wouter Bos, who resigned as deputy prime minister and finance minister, announced that he wanted to continue to lead his party. Labour Party leader Bos denied that the upcoming local elections in the Netherlands played a role in the decision to refuse to compromise on a possible extension of the Dutch military mission in Afghanistan.

Cabinet Members

Trivia