Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s government collapsed over a migration policy dispute, pointing the Netherlands toward an early election as soon as this fall.
Rutte, who has led the government since 2010, said several days of talks within his four-party coalition failed to overcome “too irreconcilable” differences. The Cabinet will stay on in a caretaker capacity and continue to support Ukraine in its military response to Russia’s invasion, he said.
Dutch voters last elected a new parliament in March 2021 and Rutte, 56, signaled he may run for a fifth term as premier, saying “if you ask now, the answer is yes.” The next vote would be held in mid-November at the earliest, the country’s Electoral Council said Friday.
Rutte’s VVD party has been putting pressure on its leader to limit the number of arriving asylum seekers, while the progressive D66 party and the smaller Christian Union are strong supporters of providing safe harbor to refugees and their families.
“Migration is a large and important subject, both politically and socially,” Rutte told reporters in The Hague on Friday night. “Now that we cannot come to an agreement on this subject, we have jointly decided that the political support disappeared.”
Rutte said he has offered his resignation to King Willem-Alexander, who will receive the prime minister at the royal palace on Saturday.
He’s the longest-serving prime minister in Dutch history and the most-senior leader in the European Union along with Hungary’s Viktor Orban. But Rutte this year posted the worst Senate election result of his premiership as the Farmer-Citizen Movement, or BBB, became the biggest party in the Dutch upper house.
The upstart party rose on the back of drastic measures imposed by the government to comply with EU rules on reducing nitrogen pollution and protect nature after intensive farming devastated biodiversity in the Netherlands, the world’s second-largest exporter of agricultural products.
Thousands of farmers protested for months against the measures which they fear will put some of them out of business.
For all his challenges, Rutte is famous for surviving political crises and can count on his personal popularity with voters.
The conflict among the coalition parties, which formed a government 18 months ago, escalated when Rutte proposed on Wednesday to limit the right to family reunions for refugees from war zones to 200 people per month after a period of two years — demands that were unacceptable to D66 and the Christian Union.
In an Ipsos poll in June, Rutte’s VVD led with a projected 28 seats, compared with 23 for BBB. By contrast, a June poll by I&O put BBB ahead with 28 seats and VVD at 22.
Rutte’s tenure as prime minister has spanned coalitions with parties ranging from the conservative Christian Union to D66. He endured a scandal over childcare subsidies, which tipped thousands into poverty and triggered the collapse of his third Cabinet, and has battled with high inflation and an energy crisis since last year.
