The caretaker Dutch government is to limp on towards a general election in October after foreign minister, Caspar Veldkamp, and his fellow New Social Contract (NSC) ministers resigned on Friday.
Mr Veldkamp’s decision came after he failed to persuade his coalition partners to support proposed new sanctions against Israel over its planned offensive in Gaza City. The sanctions included a ban on imports from Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.
Having taken constitutional advice over the weekend on whether he could govern with the rump of the coalition holding just 32 of the 150 seats in parliament, outgoing premier, Dick Schoof, said on Monday he would redistribute the nine ministerial vacancies and remain in office.
Defence minister Ruben Brekelmans of the centre-right VVD will add Mr Veldkamp’s portfolio to his own, while the remaining eight jobs – four ministries and four junior ministries – will be divided among the rest of the cabinet, with several taking on two briefs.
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Mr Schoof conceded, however, that he may have to bring in some new faces because, while the election is scheduled for October 29th, it could be well into 2026 before the parties succeed in negotiating a new coalition, which typically takes about six months.
The outgoing four-party coalition was put together with difficulty in May 2024, with Geert Wilders’s Freedom party as the largest, combined with the VVD, the farmer-citizen party, BBB, and the NSC, founded shortly before by Pieter Omtzigt, who has since resigned.
Unusually, Mr Wilders and the other party leaders agreed not to take ministerial posts but to lead their parties from the government benches.
Although the government pledged it would be the most right-wing in the Netherlands’ history, and particularly tough on immigration, there was bitter disagreement between the parties from the start.
The Freedom Party pulled out in June when Mr Wilders unilaterally produced a new 10-point plan proposing a complete halt to asylum, closure of shelters, an end to family reunification, and the deportation of Syrian asylum seekers, which the other party leaders refused to sign.
The latest crisis to hit the 14-month-old coalition has been brewing since the three remaining parties refused to take tougher action against Israel – beyond the decision to impose entry bans on far-right ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich.
Friends of Mr Veldkamp (61) – a former ambassador to Israel – say he had been “profoundly affected” by posters circulated by an aid organisation, featuring Gaza alongside his image and the question, “Where’s your conscience?”
Following Mr Veldkamp’s decision, his party leader, Eddy van Hijum, commented: “We are done. The actions of the Israeli government are contrary to international agreements. We must draw a line.”
