Geert Wilders, leader of the anti-Islam PVV, holds the key to a new attempt to form a right-wing government, Liberal leader Mark Rutte said on Monday evening.

Rutte made the comment on his return from meeting queen Beatrix to discuss the collapse of right-wing formation talks on Friday. The Liberal leader told the queen he should now be given the go ahead to write a solo coalition agreement which other parties can then sign up to.
The queen is in the middle of a new consultation round on forming a cabinet after Wilders pulled out of talks on Friday, saying he no longer had confidence that the CDA fully supported his involvement.
Resignation
Three of the CDA’s 21 MPs had gone public with their objections. The most prominent, Ab Klink, resigned as an MP on Monday.
The Christian Democrats and PVV have also recommended to the queen that Rutte be given the green light to write a government manifesto by himself, news agency ANP reports.
The manifesto should be capable of attracting broad support but ‘I remain a VVD supporter and will write it from that perspective,’ Rutte said.
€18bn
He refused to say if the manifesto would include a commitment to cut government spending by €18bn over the next four years. The three right-wing parties had reached preliminary agreement on economic reform, including €18bn in savings, before Wilders pulled out.
Labour leader Job Cohen, who has suggested he write the manifesto together with Rutte, said he had told the queen he still preferred the ‘purple plus’ coalition – the VVD, Labour, D66 and GroenLinks.
But he would not rule out other majority combinations, Cohen said.
Smaller parties
The queen will meet leaders of the smaller parties on Tuesday to find out their assessment of the situation and what they think should happen next.
The Netherlands has been without effective government since the end of February when the cabinet collapsed over support for Afghanistan. The VVD emerged as the biggest party with 31 seats after the June general election. Labour has 30 and the PVV 24.