Talks between the leaders of the Liberal parties VVD and D66, Labour and the left wing greens GroenLinks and cabinet negotiator Uri Rosenthal will continue into Monday evening, sources in The Hague said on Monday.

The four-party mixture is known as ‘purple plus’ – a reference to ‘purple’ coalition which ran the Netherlands in the late 1990s to 2002 and took its name from the mix of party colours.
On Monday afternoon, a number of financial experts joined the discussions, which centre on getting the Netherlands’ finances back in order.
VVD leader Mark Rutte has several times expressed his doubts about the likelihood of forming a coalition with Labour because of their different economic policies.

Differences

There are some points in common. All four parties want to increase the state pension age to 67, to replace student grants with student loans and to sharply reduce the government apparatus.
However, the VVD is the only one of the four parties which does not want to cut mortgage tax relief. It also strongly opposed to a tax on motoring to reduce traffic congestion.
Immigration and integration is also likely to be a difficult area to reach a compromise on. The VVD also wants to cut spending on development aid, the others want to see defence spending reduced.