Coalition talks to resume on Monday, with Kaag, Rutte and Hamer meeting

Talks on forming a new coalition government in the Netherlands will resume on Monday, when chief negotiator Mariëtte Hamer holds talks with Mark Rutte, prime minister and leader of the VVD, and Sigrid Kaag, foreign minister and D66 chief.

The two party leaders have been working on a joint document over the summer which is supposed to outline a possible coalition agreement. The talks had reached an impasse in June.

The Netherlands has had a caretaker cabinet since early January, when the government resigned in the fall out from the child benefits scandal. The general election was on March 15.

In Monday’s talks, the focus will be on working out how other parties can join in the negotiations, the AD reported. The CDA, PvdA, GroenLinks and ChristenUnie are considered to be likely coalition partners but there are issues between them.

GroenLinks and the PvdA, for example, have said they both want to be in the next cabinet, while the VVD and CDA are not keen on having two left of centre partners.

Parliamentary chairwoman Vera Bergkamp had asked for an update on progress on Wednesday, six weeks after Rutte and Kaag started working on their plan.