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Formation fail

Just in: the negotiations between VVD, CDA, D66, and GL have failed. I assume that means that CU will be swapped in for GL. The question is who’s going to get the blame.

Informer Schippers (VVD) blamed not one of the parties, but several sharp disagreements, notably on migration, but also on climate and income, for the failure. The party leaders concurred: apparently the decision to break off the negotiations was taken by all of them, instead of one party leaving the table.

It would be interesting to hear more about the exact nature of the disagreements, but that won’t happen tonight. The party leaders are being very disciplined so far: they know they might be required to run a reprise of this round of negotiations later on, and there’s no point in hurting anyone’s feelings.

As to the expected GL-CU swap: journalist Meeus pointed to the CU migration platform, that is not all that far removed from the left, though with added Biblical authority. If CDA and VVD want a strict anti-migration policy, they may have to move rightward to VVD+CDA+PVV+small fry in the end. It’s unclear where D66 stands on all of this, and that’s also one of the details I’d love to know.

Schippers will present her report to parliament, which will debate it and (presumably) re-appoint her to lead the next round of negotiations with (presumably) the CU.

Later update:

D66 wants a government with a “broad majority.” It’s not entirely clear which majority party leader Pechtold feels is broad enough, but VVD+CDA+D66+CU, which has the smallest possible majority of 76 seats, certainly doesn’t count. On the other hand, the 85-seat majority with GL instead of CU that D66 spent the last two months negotiating about clearly does count. One wonders if the 80 seats of VVD+CDA+D66+PvdA count.
(Source)

The proposal to extend the refugee deal the EU now has with Turkey to the North-African countries proved to be too much for GL, though not for D66, which sided with the right-wing parties. Also, the migration talks were more difficult than the climate talks.
(Source)

<— Small fry 9/4 | Formation: the current status —>

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