Prime Minister
After garnering support for such a coalition, Rutte was appointed as formateur (prime minister-designate) on 8 October 2010. Rutte then appointed the ministers, with Maxime Verhagen (CDA) as his deputy prime minister. On 14 October, Beatrix formally invited Rutte to form a government. Later that day, Rutte presented his Cabinet team to Parliament, and it was confirmed in office by the smallest possible majority.
Rutte is the first Prime Minister since 1918 who is neither a Christian democrat nor a socialist, as well as the first liberal to hold that post since Pieter Cort van der Linden, who was Prime Minister from 1913 till 1918. He is also the first VVD Prime Minister.
In March 2012, seeking to comply with European Union requirements for the nation's deficit, Rutte began talks with coalition parties VVD and CDA and supporting party PVV on a budget for 2013, which would cut 16 billion Euros of spending. However, PVV leader Geert Wilders withdrew his party's support on April 21, stating that the budget would hurt economic growth; which led to the downfall of the government. Rutte submitted his resignation to Queen Beatrix on the afternoon of 23 April. His government lasted for 558 days, making it one of the shortest Netherlands cabinets since World War II. New elections were held on 12 September 2012.
Read more about this topic: Mark Rutte
Famous quotes related to prime minister:
“If one had to worry about one’s actions in respect of other people’s ideas, one might as well be buried alive in an antheap or married to an ambitious violinist. Whether that man is the prime minister, modifying his opinions to catch votes, or a bourgeois in terror lest some harmless act should be misunderstood and outrage some petty convention, that man is an inferior man and I do not want to have anything to do with him any more than I want to eat canned salmon.”
—Aleister Crowley (1875–1947)