Prime minister Mark Rutte is to hold top level talks with the D66 and GroenLinks opposition parties in an effort to save the coalition’s plans to merge Nood-Holland, Flevoland and Utrecht into one giant province.

GroenLinks has said it will support the initiative in return for major investment in nature, the Volkskrant reports.

The aim of the merger is to boost efficiency and cut costs at a provincial government level, but there is widespread opposition to the plan, not least from within the provinces themselves.

At a news conference in April, the three king’s commissioners in the provinces said they were unanimously opposed to this ‘glued together merger without vision’.

Rutte hopes talks with D66 and GroenLinks will lead to a majority for the plans in the upper house of parliament. The two-party coalition does not control the senate.