Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte and his entire cabinet resigned on Friday to take political responsibility for a scandal related to investigations into child welfare payments that mislabeled thousands of parents as scammers. In a nationally televised speech, Rutte said he had informed King Willem-Alexander of his decision and promised that his government would continue to work to compensate the affected parents as quickly as possible and fight the coronavirus.
“We think that if the whole system has failed, we should all take responsibility and this has led to the conclusion that I have just offered the king the resignation of the whole Council of Ministers,” Rutte said.
Photo of REMKO DE WAAL / ANP / AFP via Getty Images
The movement was seen as largely symbolic; Rutte’s government will remain in office provisionally until a new coalition is formed after the March 17 elections in the Netherlands.
The resignation puts an end to a decade in charge of Rutte, although his party is expected to win the election, which puts him in first place to start talks to form the next government. If he manages to form a new coalition, Rutte would probably be prime minister again.
The Netherlands is the third European country to have this political uncertainty this week in full swing coronavirus crisis. In Estonia, the government resigned over a corruption scandal, while the ruling coalition of Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte risks collapsing after a small partner party withdrew its support.
Rutte said earlier this week that his government would be able to continue making tough political decisions in the battle against coronavirus, even if it was the janitor mode. The Netherlands is in a hard blockade until at least February 9 and the government is considering imposing a curfew overnight amid fears about new, more contagious variants of the virus.
“I tell them in the Netherlands: our fight against coronavirus will continue,” Rutte said.
On Thursday, the Dutch opposition leader of the Labor Party resigned because he was Minister of Social Affairs in a governing coalition led by Rutte when the country’s tax office implemented a harsh policy of tracking fraud with welfare infantile.
Lodewijk Asscher’s decision put additional pressure on Rutte ahead of Friday’s cabinet meeting. Ministers were due to decide their reaction to a scathing report released last month, titled “Unprecedented Injustice,” which said the Tax Administration’s policies violated “the fundamental principles of the rule of law.” The report also criticized the government for the way it provided information to parliament about the scandal.
Many unjustly accused parents were left in debt when tax officials demanded a refund of the payments. In the past, the government has apologized for the methods of the tax office and in March allocated 500 million euros ($ 607 million) to compensate more than 20,000 parents.
One of these parents waited close to parliament while the Cabinet was meeting and said he wanted him to resign.
“It’s important to me because the government acknowledges,‘ We made a mistake and took responsibility, ’because it’s something that happened to us,” Janet Ramesar told The Associated Press.
Rutte plans to lead his conservative People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy in the March elections, and polls suggest he will win more seats. This would place Rutte, who has been in charge for a decade at the head of three different coalitions, the first to try to form the next ruling coalition.
Deputy Prime Minister Kajsa Ollongren, who is acting as interior minister, said when she entered Friday’s meeting that “it is very important to be responsible and also show responsibility in the political sense, and we will talk about it in the Cabinet today “.