The Dutch Government Collapses: What Happens Next?

After 13 years as the Dutch PM, Mark Rutte announced he is stepping down as VVD leader following the collapse of another coalition. So in this video, we'll explain what's happened, why the government collapsed (again) and what might happen next.

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[poltergijstt]

Being Dutch I feel like you've explained it really well. It can be hard to keep track and understand the politics of a country you're not living in, so videos like these about any country are more than welcome. I really hope we will get a different coalition. Our parties have the habit of saying they're not willing to work with certain other parties even before the election results are in, this causes big groups of voters to be ignored. It's a problem I hope we will get rid of

[GorgeDawes]

To be honest, I’ve had the distinct impression that Rutte couldn’t really be arsed any more since the last election. This feels like a convenient way out for him.

[oliviertilanus]

I was interested in this video, because it was for me a test to see if TLDR their news was reliable. And it is. The information given is the same information you'll see in the dutch papers I read this morning. They truly do give a shortened, but reliable overview of the current news. Now that I know that their reporting on my country is reliable, I'll be more comfortable seeing what they say about other foreign topics.

[RealLooktea]

Its always strange when a long time leader like Rutte steps down. Reminds me of when Merkel announced she’d be going, a long time centre right leader, stepping down after waves of controversies around immigration while the countries main right wing opposition begins to surge electorally

[hungrymusicwolf]

While yes Mark Rutte claimed to have left over immigration, as many politicians in the Netherlands have pointed out there were both plenty of options available (eg. restricting economic migrants of which there were multiple times as many) and much larger previous problems the last year / few years that they were happy to ignore. Chances are immigration is just an excuse and this was a political move of some sort. What exactly his plans are only time will tell.

[theuglykwan]

Rutte is the longest serving PM in EU after Merkel retired. He's been PM since 2010. In that time we had 5 prime ministers in the UK.

[Kholdstare]

Mark Rutte is the pinnacle of either you die a hero or you live long enough to become villain. He was an improvement compared to Balkenende, but with every election it became worse and worse. Finally we can have a breath of fresh air again, for good or for bad. We will probably get some really bad governments first before we can finally get a good one.

[mistrants]

And now the real reason: Rutte intentionally dropped the entire thing. There was NO reason to collapse over this and its no mystery that it came as a complete blindside for almost all parties involved.

[supernenechi]

I hope we're not going to make this a regular thing, that anytime we have a difficult issue, the government collapses over it. It is quite inconvenient though, since it's very difficult/impossible to make big decisions with a collapsed government and there are lots of things that require attention at this moment.

[vlky]

You guys are incredibly well informed on our politics. Great job.

[anoniemegamer]

Mark Rutte has been the only prime minister I've known

[jeannetitor]

he's called teflon mark because non of the scandals during his reign all these years stick to him.

[pietsnotty]

The 2 status system has already been tried in the Netherlands and was abolished in 1992. In other countries, such as Germany this system leads to loads of bureaucracy

[DenDave_]

A key note about the BBB (farmers party) is that a vast number of the votes they received in the provincial elections were in essence a 'protest-vote', a vote for the BBB was also seen as a vote against Mark Rutte, so they earned their victory then as a populist party. While they will remain one of the larger players in the general elections, it is unlikely they will replicate that landslide victory.

[buurmeisje]

As a Dutch person, I think this is great.

[Heshhion]

Dutch PM, Mark Rutte resigning over immigration was a clever move. Even if you don't like his policies, he out played everyone.

[vicakolbeek]

Great video! I am from The Netherlands, and it was expected that the government would collapse, but that Mark Rutte would step down was a surprise for a lot of people. All the subjects you mentioned will be debated, but I followed the debate yesterday and every party was talking about new leadership and a new political The Hague. I think that the next election will also be about which party and who will be the best to take The Netherlands in that new direction they were talking about yesterday.

[jaspermooren]

Really good video! I'm Dutch myself and have been following the news closely and it's fairly accurate. It is indeed basically completely useless to look at current polling for an election in November. The Netherlands is always pretty swingy and almost no party has a large stable voting base. It is not uncommon for polls within weeks before an election to change by 10%-points or sometimes even more. Parties can double or halve in size in the polling simply based on tactical voting and new developments. People who always vote for the same party are the exception rather than the rule in modern politics in the Netherlands. There is also the complete wildcard that is the BBB (farmer's party) that won big in the provincial election as a more or less new party. They could reasonably get anything between 4 and 40 seats.

[Rosebakker]

Btw there have been only two times where the same party in the polls was the biggest 6 months before the elections and during election night. Those two times are 2003 and 2021

The list is
2021: VVD lead, VVD won
2017: PVV lead, VVD won
2012: SP lead, VVD won
2010: CDA lead, VVD won
2006: PvdA lead, CDA won
2003: CDA lead, CDA won
2002: PvdA lead, CDA won
1998: VVD lead, PvdA won
1994: D66 lead, PvdA won
1989: PvdA lead, CDA won
1986: PvdA lead, CDA won
1982: CDA lead, PvdA won (but didn’t form govt)
1981: PvdA lead, CDA won

[upgradeplans]

One funny thing is that Rutte misspoke when he said that his position is completely subordinate to [the Netherlands]. He actually said that is was completely unsuitable to it.

(It was pretty clearly a mispronunciation though.)