Netherlands' coalition govt collapses over disagreement on asylum policy

The Dutch government collapsed following differences between coalition parties on limiting migration, reported Nu.nl citing sources in the outgoing cabinet.

The four parties in the ruling coalition -- People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD), Democrats 66 (D66), Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) and Christian Union (ChristenUnie) -- failed to agree on crisis discussions chaired by Prime Minister Mark Rutte.

The government was formed a year-and-a-half ago, but parties have been diametrically opposed to migration policy, said the report.

Presently, the ministers involved are still at the Ministry of General Affairs. The news has not yet been officially confirmed, as per Nu.nl, a Dutch online newspaper.

 

An extra Council of Ministers has been called in at 9:30 pm (CET) after which, caretaker Prime Minister Mark Rutte will address a press conference. It remains to be seen how long the meeting of all the ministers will last.

On Friday evening, the cabinet's top officials met to discuss immigration for the third day in a row. Rutte had told his party that a package with stricter asylum policies would be unveiled this week.

There was a lot of tension between the parties, the report noted, adding that in particular, the family reunification went wrong. The VVD wants to severely restrict this because war refugees would only be staying here temporarily, according to Nu.nl.

For the Christian Union, this crossed a line. Additionally, other intermediate variants were unable to reconcile the parties. However, as per the sources cited by Nu.nl, the ChristenUnie has not yet officially acknowledged that it was the party that initiated the cabinet's resignation.

Therefore, Cabinet Rutte IV could not complete its four-year journey.

When new elections will be held is still unknown, Nu.nl reported, adding that until then, the cabinet is the caretaker.