Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte and his entire cabinet resigned on Friday to take political responsibility for a scandal involving investigations into child welfare payments that mistakenly labeled thousands of parents as fraudsters. In a speech broadcast on national television, Rutte said he informed King Willem-Alexander of his decision and promised that his government would continue to work to compensate the affected parents as soon as possible and fight the coronavirus.
“We agree that if the whole system has failed, we should all take responsibility, and that has led to the conclusion that I have just offered the king to resign from the entire cabinet,” said Rutte.
Photo by REMKO DE WAAL / ANP / AFP via Getty Images
The change was seen as largely symbolic; Rutte’s government will remain in office as an administrator until a new coalition is formed after the March 17 elections in the Netherlands.
The resignation ends a decade in Rutte’s office, although his party is expected to win the election, putting him first in line to start negotiations to form the next government. If he manages to form a new coalition, Rutte will likely become prime minister again.
The Netherlands is the third European country launched into political uncertainty this week amid Coronavirus crisis. In Estonia, the government resigned due to a corruption scandal, while Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte’s governing coalition is in danger of collapse after a small partner party withdrew its support.
Rutte said earlier this week that his government would be able to continue to make difficult political decisions in the battle against the coronavirus, even if it was provisional. The Netherlands is in a difficult blockade until at least February 9, and the government is considering imposing an overnight curfew amid fears about new, more contagious variants of the virus.
“For the Netherlands I say: our fight against the coronavirus will continue,” said Rutte.
On Thursday, the leader of the Dutch opposition Labor Party stepped down because he was Minister of Social Affairs in a government coalition led by Rutte, when the country’s finance bureau implemented a tough policy of tracking child welfare fraud .
Lodewijk Asscher’s decision put more pressure on Rutte ahead of Friday’s cabinet meeting. Ministers were expected to decide on their reaction to a hard-hitting report released last month, entitled “Unprecedented Injustice”, which said that the policies of tax offices violated “fundamental principles of the rule of law”. The report also criticized the government for the way it provided information to parliament about the scandal.
Many parents who were wrongly accused went into debt when the tax authorities demanded repayment of payments. In the past, the government apologized for the tax methods and, in March, earmarked 500 million euros ($ 607 million) to indemnify more than 20,000 parents.
One of those parents waited near parliament when the cabinet met and said he wanted to resign.
“It is important to me because it is the government recognizing: ‘We have made a mistake and we are taking responsibility’, because it is quite something that has happened to us,” Janet Ramesar told the Associated Press.
Rutte plans to lead his conservative People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy in the March elections, and polls suggest he will win the majority of the seats. This would put Rutte, who has been in office for a decade at the head of three different coalitions, the first in line to try to form the next governing coalition.
Deputy Prime Minister Kajsa Ollongren, who serves as interior minister, said when entering Friday’s meeting that “it is very important to be accountable and also to show responsibility in the political sense, and we will talk about this in the Council of Ministers today . “