Exploratory talks on forming a new government coalition made up of the two liberal parties VVD and D66, Labour and the left wing greens GroenLinks will begin on Monday, chief negotiator Uri Rosenthal said on Friday evening.

The talks are a ‘halfway house’ to see if ‘there is any point’ in negotiating further, Rosenthal said. 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.
VVD leader Mark Rutte had favoured a coalition with Labour and the Christian Democrats following the collapse of talks with the anti-Islam PVV. But Labour leader Job Cohen came out strongly against a coalition which would involve two parties which lost seats in last week’s vote.
Economic policy
Labour, GroenLinks and D66 have all come out publicly in favour of ‘purple plus’. The VVD, which beat Labour by one seat in the general election, has said it will be a very difficult combination to put together because of the differences in terms of economic policy.
However, many VVD supporters are known to be unhappy about linking up with the left wing parties, with one MP telling the Volkskrant it could be ‘electoral suicide’.
A pact with the left will also leave the way open for both the CDA and PVV to attack the VVD from the opposition benches.
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.