First Rutte cabinet

First Rutte cabinet Rutte-Verhagen cabinet
68th cabinet of the Netherlands
The First Rutte cabinet on 14 October 2010
Date formed	14 October 2010 (2010-10-14)
Date dissolved	5 November 2012 (2012-11-05)
People and organisations
Head of government	Mark Rutte
Deputy head of government	Maxime Verhagen
Head of state	Beatrix of the Netherlands
Ministers removed (Death/resignation/dismissal)	1
Total number of ministers	13
Member party	People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA)
Status in legislature	Minority government
History
Election(s)	Dutch general election, 2010
Outgoing election	Dutch general election, 2012
Legislature term(s)	2010-2012
Incoming formation	2010 Dutch cabinet formation
Outgoing formation	2012 Dutch cabinet formation
Predecessor	Fourth Balkenende cabinet
Successor	Second Rutte cabinet

Kingdom of the Netherlands

This article is part of a series on the politics and government of the Netherlands
Constitution Charter Wet Algemene Bepalingen Human rights
Monarchy King Willem-Alexander Council of Ministers Ministers Plenipotentiary Aruba Curaçao St. Maarten
Cabinet Prime Minister (list) Mark Rutte Deputy Prime Minister Lodewijk Asscher Cabinet (list) Current cabinet (69th / Rutte 2)
States General Senate President: Ankie Broekers-Knol Current membership Historic composition House of Representatives Speaker: Khadija Arib Current membership Historic composition Parliamentary committees
Judiciary Supreme Court High Councils of State Council of State Court of Audit National Ombudsman
Elections Recent elections General: 2006 2010 2012 Provincial: 2007 2011 2015 Municipal: 2006 2010 2014 European: 2004 2009 2014 Referendums Referendums: 2005 2016 Political parties Politicians
Local government Provincial politics Water boards Municipal politics BES islands
Foreign relations Diplomatic missions of the Netherlands to the Netherlands
Related topics Law of the Netherlands Social Economic Council Central Bank Contemporary history
Other countries Atlas

The First Rutte cabinet, also called the Rutte-Verhagen cabinet was the executive branch of the Dutch government from 14 October 2010 until 5 November 2012. The cabinet was formed by the political parties People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) and Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) after the Dutch general election of 2010. The cabinet was a minority cabinet but it was supported by the Party for Freedom (PVV) in the House of Representatives for a majority.

Formation

Further information: 2010 Dutch cabinet formation

Following the collapse of the fourth Balkenende cabinet on 20 February 2010, elections for the House of Representatives were held on 9 June 2010. As usual in Dutch politics, none of the parties had a majority and several Informateurs were appointed to investigate the formation of a coalition cabinet. A broad coalition consisting of the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy, Christian Democratic Appeal and the Labour Party was briefly looked at, but dismissed. Then negotiations for a "purple plus" coalition consisting of the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy, Labour Party, Democrats 66 and GreenLeft lasted for about three weeks, but the parties could not reach agreement on the amount of budget cuts. Finally, a construction which is rare for the Netherlands was investigated: a minority coalition consisting of the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy and Christian Democratic Appeal (together 52 out of 150 seats in the House of Representatives), supported in parliament by the Party for Freedom (24 seats), to make the smallest possible majority of 76 seats. The reason for this construction was that parties agreed that the largest party the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy and the largest winner in the elections needed to be in power; only the Christian Democratic Appeal could or wanted to help make a majority, but they were against forming a proper coalition with Party for Freedom because of their different views on Islam and immigration. Therefore, negotiations were held to form a coalition agreement between the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy and Christian Democratic Appeal, and to form a "parliamentary support agreement" between all three parties, which were successfully finished on 30 September 2010.

The opposition parties expected that the coalition would prove to be unstable because at a special Christian Democratic Appeal conference, about a third of the Christian Democratic Appeal members voted against the formation of this cabinet. Also, in the Christian Democratic Appeal parliamentary fraction at least two people indicated they have difficulties with the cabinet, but say they will support it because the majority of the party approves of the cabinet.

When the cabinet took office, the three parties had a minority in the Senate of 35 out of 75 seats. The parties hoped this would change following the Dutch Senate election of 2011, but they obtained 37 seats, one short of a majority. However, it is expected that the small Christian party Reformed Political Party, which obtained one seat, will support the cabinet in the Senate.

Withdrawal of support of the Party for Freedom

Because of the financial crisis in the Netherlands and because of the rules of the European Union that the deficit should be maximum 3%, the Christian Democratic Appeal (Maxime Verhagen), the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (Mark Rutte), and the Party for Freedom (Geert Wilders) decided to talk with each other about new, severe austerity measures, worth about 14 billion Euro. The negotiations about the measures lasted 7 weeks and ended on 21 April when Geert Wilders walked out of the negotiations. The reason he gave was that the measure would negatively impact people who receive benefits from the Dutch pension act. Both Rutte and Verhagen blamed Wilders for the failure of the negotiations. As a result, the government resigned and a new election was called.

Composition

The cabinet consisted of 12 Ministers and 8 Undersecretaries. The positions where divided equally among the coalition members, regardless of their respective size: People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (31 seats in parliament) supplied 6 Ministers and 4 Undersecretaries, and Christian Democratic Appeal (21 seats) also supplied 6 Ministers and 4 Undersecretaries.

The number of Ministers and Undersecretaries was reduced from the previous cabinet by merging several ministries: the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality was merged with the Ministry of Economic Affairs; the Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment was merged with the Ministry of Transport, Public Works and Water Management to form the new Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment; some tasks of the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations went to the Ministry of Justice, which was renamed the Ministry of Security and Justice. Also the Minister for Development Cooperation was scrapped and replaced by a Minister without portfolio for Immigration, Integration and Asylum Affairs.

On 16 December 2011 the Minister of the Interior and Kingdom Relations Piet Hein Donner resigned after he was selected as the new Vice President of the Council of State succeeding Herman Tjeenk Willink, he was replaced as Minister of the Interior and Kingdom Relations by fellow Christian Democratic Appeal party member Liesbeth Spies.^[1]^[2]^[3]

Ministers		Title/Portfolio		Term of office	Party
	Mark Rutte (born 1967)	Prime Minister	General Affairs	14 October 2010 – 5 November 2012	People's Party for Freedom and Democracy
	Maxime Verhagen (born 1956)	Deputy Prime Minister / Minister	Economic Affairs, Agriculture and Innovation	14 October 2010 – 5 November 2012	Christian Democratic Appeal
	Piet Hein Donner (born 1948)	Minister	Interior and Kingdom Relations	14 October 2010 – 16 December 2011 ^[Appt]	Christian Democratic Appeal
	Liesbeth Spies (born 1966)	Minister	Interior and Kingdom Relations	16 December 2011 – 5 November 2012	Christian Democratic Appeal
	Uri Rosenthal (born 1945)	Minister	Foreign Affairs	14 October 2010 – 5 November 2012	People's Party for Freedom and Democracy
	Jan Kees de Jager (born 1969)	Minister	Finance	14 October 2010 – 5 November 2012	Christian Democratic Appeal
	Ivo Opstelten (born 1944)	Minister	Security and Justice	14 October 2010 – 5 November 2012	People's Party for Freedom and Democracy
	Hans Hillen (born 1947)	Minister	Defence	14 October 2010 – 5 November 2012	Christian Democratic Appeal
	Edith Schippers (born 1964)	Minister	Health, Welfare and Sport	14 October 2010 – 5 November 2012	People's Party for Freedom and Democracy
	Marja van Bijsterveldt (born 1961)	Minister	Education, Culture and Science	14 October 2010 – 5 November 2012	Christian Democratic Appeal
	Melanie Schultz van Haegen (born 1970)	Minister	Infrastructure and the Environment	14 October 2010 – 5 November 2012	People's Party for Freedom and Democracy
	Henk Kamp (born 1952)	Minister	Social Affairs and Employment	14 October 2010 – 5 November 2012	People's Party for Freedom and Democracy
Minister without portfolio		Title/Portfolio/Ministry		Term of office	Party
	Gerd Leers (born 1951)	Minister	Immigration, Integration and Asylum Affairs (within Interior and Kingdom Relations)	14 October 2010 – 5 November 2012	Christian Democratic Appeal
Undersecretaries		Title/Portfolio/Ministry		Term of office	Party
	Ben Knapen (born 1951)	Undersecretary	European Affairs and Development Cooperation (within Foreign Affairs)	14 October 2010 – 5 November 2012	Christian Democratic Appeal
	Frans Weekers (born 1967)\| Undersecretary	Fiscal Affairs, Taxes and Finances of the Lower Government (within Finance)	14 October 2010 – 5 November 2012	People's Party for Freedom and Democracy
	Fred Teeven (born 1958)	Undersecretary ^[Title]	Prevention, Family Law, Copyright Law and Youth Justice (within Security and Justice)	14 October 2010 – 5 November 2012	People's Party for Freedom and Democracy
	Henk Bleker (Born 1953)	Undersecretary ^[Title]	Agriculture, Nature, Food Quality, Tourism and Postal Affairs (within Economic Affairs)	14 October 2010 – 5 November 2012	Christian Democratic Appeal
	Marlies Veldhuijzen van Zanten (born 1953)	Undersecretary	Nursing and Care, Elderly Policy, Youth Policy and Biotechnology (within Health, Welfare and Sport)	14 October 2010 – 5 November 2012	Christian Democratic Appeal
	Halbe Zijlstra (born 1969)	Undersecretary	Higher Education, Science and Knowledge, Teachers and Culture (within Education, Culture and Science)	14 October 2010 – 5 November 2012	People's Party for Freedom and Democracy
	Joop Atsma (Born 1956)	Undersecretary	Aviation, Water Policy and the Environment (within Infrastructure and the Environment)	14 October 2010 – 5 November 2012	Christian Democratic Appeal
	Paul de Krom (born 1963)	Undersecretary	Unemployment Insurances, Equality, Long-term Unemployment, Poverty, Health and Safety (within Social Affairs and Employment)	14 October 2010 – 5 November 2012	People's Party for Freedom and Democracy
Source: (Dutch)Rijksoverheid.nl

^Title Allowed to use a ministers title while on foreign business.

^Appt Appointment: Piet Hein Donner appointed Vice President of the Council of State.

References

↑ (Dutch) Benoeming Spies tot minister vrijdag verwacht, NOS, 15 December 2011
↑ (Dutch) Donner naar Raad van State, NOS, 16 December 2011
↑ (Dutch) 'Spies volgt Donner op in kabinet', NU.nl, 16 December 2011

External links

Official

(Dutch) Kabinet-Rutte-Verhagen Rijksoverheid
(Dutch) Kabinet-Rutte I (2010-2012) Parlement & Politiek

First Rutte cabinet (2010–2012)

^{Preceded by: Demissionary Fourth Balkenende cabinet · Succeeded by: Second Rutte cabinet}

Prime Minister	Mark Rutte General Affairs

Deputy Prime Minister	Maxime Verhagen Economic Affairs, Agriculture and Innovation

Ministers	Piet Hein Donner Interior and Kingdom Relations) (2010–2011 Liesbeth Spies Interior and Kingdom Relations) (from 2011 Uri Rosenthal Foreign Affairs Jan Kees de Jager Finance Ivo Opstelten Security and Justice Hans Hillen Defence Edith Schippers Health, Welfare and Sport Marja van Bijsterveldt Education, Culture and Science Melanie Schultz van Haegen Infrastructure and the Environment Henk Kamp Social Affairs and Employment

Minister without portfolio	Gerd Leers Immigration, Integration and Asylum Affairs

State Secretaries	Ben Knapen Foreign Affairs Frans Weekers Finance Fred Teeven Security and Justice Henk Bleker Economic Affairs, Agriculture and Innovation Marlies Veldhuijzen van Zanten Health, Welfare and Sport Halbe Zijlstra Education, Culture and Science Joop Atsma Infrastructure and the Environment Paul de Krom Social Affairs and Employment

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 9/10/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.