Cabinet of The Netherlands - Formation

Formation

After a general election, or if a cabinet resigns during a parliamentary term, the process of cabinet formation starts. Because of the multi-party system of the Netherlands, no single party has ever had a majority in parliament since 1900, and formation of a coalition of two or often three parties is always necessary. This is a time-consuming process. The Queen takes an important role in cabinet formation. The entire procedure is regulated by tradition and convention, with only the final appointment process specified by law.

Initially, the Queen has secret individual meetings with the presidents of the Senate and House of Representatives, and the vice-chair of the Raad van State. Next she has a meeting with the leader of each parliamentary party in the House of Representatives. She follows this up by appointing an informateur who explores the options of a new cabinet. The informateur is often a relative outsider and a veteran politician, who has retired from active politics, perhaps a member of the Senate or Raad van State, though by convention he or she has a background in the largest party in the House of Representatives. The Queen may appoint multiple informateurs, with backgrounds in other parties. The informateur is given a specific task by the Queen, often to "seek a coalition of parties with programmatic agreement and a majority in parliament." The informateur has one-on-one meetings with the leaders of the parliamentary parties, and chairs sessions of negotiations between the chairs of parliamentary parties as they compromise in order to achieve agreement. If negotiations break down, a new informateur is appointed and the information process begins afresh.

Once an informateur is successful, the Queen appoints the formateur, conventionally the leader of the largest party in the prospective coalition and the likely Prime Minister. He or she leads any remaining negotiations between those parties willing to cooperate to form a cabinet. Often, these negotiations cover the details of the program of policies, the composition of the Cabinet, and the division of Ministerial portfolios.

If the formateur is successful, the Queen appoints all ministers and state secretaries individually by Royal Decision (Koninklijk Besluit). Each Minister privately swears an oath of loyalty to the Constitution. After this the entire Council of Ministers and the Queen are photographed on the stairs of the palace Huis ten Bosch during the bordes scene. The new cabinet then proposes its plans to parliament.

Between the dissolution of the States-General before general elections and the appointment of a new Cabinet, the incumbent Cabinet is termed Demissionary cabinet/demissionair, that is, a caretaker government limiting itself to urgent and pressing matters and traditionally not taking any controversial decisions. If a Cabinet falls during a parliamentary term because one of the coalition partners withdraws its support, the coalition partner in question may leave. This does not result in a demissionair Cabinet, unless the Prime Minister is granted a dissolution of the States-General. Instead, the remaining parties in the governing coalition form a rompkabinet ("rump cabinet"). If the parties do not between them control a majority of the House of Representatives, the Cabinet continues as a minority government.

The formation is often considered as important as or even more important than the elections themselves. Because of the importance of negotiations, which can lead to policies that no party has promoted during the election, cabinet formations are sometimes seen as undemocratic. Recently it was attempted to make the process more democratic, with the formateur and informateur accounting for their actions before both the House of Representatives and the Queen. Another source of discontent with this process is the role of the monarch in it.