The VVD Liberals and Christian Democrats were working together on forming a coalition before the VVD had held talks with Labour on the ‘purple plus’ option, the Volkskrant reports on Wednesday, quoting various party sources.

While CDA leader Maxime Verhagen said in public he was open for all options, behind the scenes he and VVD leader Mark Rutte had already agreed to write a coalition agreement together, the sources said.
On Wednesday, cabinet negotiatior Ruud Lubbers told reporters that he had been given little choice when he started talks on trying to put together a new coalition. ‘I wanted to talk about all sorts of options but the party leaders gave me no room to move,’ he said.
Cuts
Lubbers said he almost turned down the job of negotiator because the CDA and VVD were so keen to form a right-wing cabinet.
The paper says Rutte was serious during the purple plus negotiations with Labour but always knew he had the CDA to fall back on. The talks with Labour failed because the parties failed to agree on how to generate enough spending cuts.