Caretaker finance minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem is leaving politics and handing back his Labour party seat.

The minister said in a letter to parliament on Tuesday evening that he ‘does not have the firepower’ which the nine-member Labour parliamentary party will need to be an effective opposition to the new cabinet.

Dijsselbloem, who will stay on as chairman of the influential Eurogroup of European finance ministers until January, will stand down on October 25, in the same week as the make-up of the new cabinet is due to be announced.

He did not give any more information about his future plans.

Dijsselbloem was first elected to parliament in 2000 and was made minister in 2012. In the letter he said he is ‘proud’ at the way the VVD and PvdA worked together and brought the Netherlands through a difficult economic crisis. ‘The Netherlands is doing well again, we are among the leading EU countries and the eurozone is once again a world economic motor,’ he said.

He will be replaced by William Moorlag, who was 9th on the PvdA electoral list but lost his seat when Lilianne Ploumen was bumped up on preference votes.