Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte and his entire cabinet resigned on Friday to accept political responsibility for a scandal investigating child welfare payments that wrongly labeled thousands of parents as fraudsters.
In a national television speech, Rutte said he had informed King Willem-Alexander of his decision and promised that his government would continue to reimburse his work as soon as possible and fight the coronavirus.
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“We believe that if we fail the whole system, we must all accept responsibility, and this has led to the conclusion that I have just offered the king, the resignation of the whole cabinet,” Rutte said.
Not long after delivering his statement, Rutte gets on his bicycle and rides to the king’s palace in a forest in The Hague to formally inform him. Dutch television shows Rutte parking his bicycle at the bottom of the stairs leading to the palace and walking inside.
The move was considered largely symbolic; Rutte’s government will remain in a state of emergency until a new coalition is formed after an election on March 17 in the Netherlands.
The resignation ends a decade of ten years for Rutte, although his party is expected to win the election, thus putting him first in line to begin talks on the next government. If he succeeds in forming a new coalition, Rutte will most likely become prime minister again.
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte (AP Photo / Peter Dejong, File)
Geert Wilders, leader of the largest opposition party in the Dutch parliament, said it was the right decision for the government to stop.
“Innocent people have been criminalized, their lives have been destroyed and parliament is inaccurate and incompletely informed about it,” he tweeted.
The Netherlands is the third European country to be in political uncertainty this week amid the coronavirus crisis. In Estonia, the government has resigned over a corruption scandal, while Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte’s ruling coalition is in danger of collapsing after a small party withdrew its support.
Rutte said earlier this week that his government will be able to make difficult policy decisions in the fight against the coronavirus, even if it is a caretaker. The Netherlands is strictly locked up until at least February 9, and the government is considering imposing an overnight ban amid fears of new, more contagious variants of the virus.
“To the Netherlands, I say: our fight against the coronavirus will continue,” Rutte said.
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Jesse Klaver, the leader of one opposition party, told national broadcaster NOS he would continue to support the government in its coronavirus campaign.
The leader of the opposition Labor Party resigned on Thursday because he was Minister of Social Affairs in a coalition led by Rutte when the country’s tax office introduced a strict policy to detect child welfare fraud.
A sitting minister, Eric Wiebes, who is also linked to the scandal, said on Friday he was resigning with immediate effect and would not be part of the caretaker administration.
At Friday’s cabinet meeting, ministers decided to respond to a critical parliamentary report issued last month, entitled ‘Unknown Injustice’, stating that the tax office’s policy violates ‘fundamental principles of the rule of law’ . The report also criticized the government for the way it provided parliament with information on the scandal.
Many parents who were wrongfully accused were plunged into debt when tax officials demanded that the payments be repaid. The government has in the past apologized for the tax office’s methods and in March earmarked 500 million euros ($ 607 million) to compensate more than 20,000 parents.
In a written response, the government promised to reform the welfare system as a result of the scandal and to quickly pay the parents concerned 30,000 euros ($ 36,300) and expand existing compensation schemes.
“Everything is aimed at giving parents and their children a fresh start in life,” the government said.
One of the parents was waiting near parliament when the cabinet met and said she wanted it to resign.
“It’s important to me because it’s the government that acknowledges, ‘We made a mistake and we take responsibility,’ because that’s something that happened to us, ‘Janet Ramesar told The Associated Press.
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Rutte plans to lead his Conservative People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy after the March election, and polls suggest it will win the most seats. This would put Rutte, who had been at the head of three different coalitions for a decade, first in line to try to form the next ruling coalition.
But he said it was up to the voters at the election to decide on his future, noting that he accepted the ultimate responsibility for failures in his government.
“The goat stops here,” he said.