The day the cabinet fell: If you want me to get rid of me, Fleur Agema asks Dick Schoof

At nine o’clock, Tuesday morning, Prime Minister Dick Schoof is in the Catshuis. Like every Tuesday, he has consultations with his four Deputy Prime Ministers: Fleur Agema of the PVV, Sophie Hermans of the VVD, Eddy van Hijum of NSC and Mona Keijzer from BBB. There are also employees. They know that a cabinet crisis threatens. And so the consultation has not really started, they are waiting. Fleur Agema comes in a little later, the others notice that. They think: she already knows.

It is not entirely certain yet, yet it is already starting to start the scenario that PVV leader Wilders does not want to continue with the cabinet. For him, civil servants have figured out how that went in the past: the ministers and state secretaries of the party who brought the cabinet to fall, then also stepped up. He asks Agema: « What do you do? » Agema has no idea.

At ten past nine, Hermans, Van Hijum and Keijzer also hear that Geert Wilders no longer supports the cabinet. They also hear that Wilders shoved will call about it, and they are waiting for that. At a quarter past nine, one of them sees Wilders’s message on X: ‘PVV leaves the coalition’. At the table there is irritation about, indignation: first x, then the prime minister. Immediately afterwards the phone ranges from Schoof. « You will have it there, » he says. He gets up to call Wilders.

Stunned and angry

Shoving against Wilders also about examples from the past and asks him the same as from Agema: what is the PVV planning with its own ministers? Wilders has not thought about it yet, he promises to call back.

Examples from the past: In June 2006, D66 dropped the Balkenende II cabinet and all D66 people left the cabinet. In 2010, Balkenende IV fell because the PvdA did not want to continue and also left the ministers and state secretaries of the PvdA.

Wilders calls it back not much later, he checked it and he made a decision about it: all his ministers stop. Agema, see the others, cannot believe it at first. She thinks Schoof has come up with this. Does he want to get her away? No, says Schoof. He knows, but he doesn’t say that the other parties are already finished with the PVV. Politically, it is no longer possible, all of them stay in one cabinet, although that is outgoing.

Yesilgöz wanted to save in Wilders’ room what could be saved

In the Lower House, VVD leader Dilan Yesilgöz, NSC’er Nicolien van Vroonhoven and Caroline van der Plas of BBB at a quarter past nine are in the corridor of the PVV, just outside the secure part. They are stunned and angry. Van Vroonhoven had ‘a small spark of hope’ early in the morning. Van der Plas hardly, at BBB the press release about the cabinet trap was already ready. Yesilgöz wanted to save in Wilders’ room what could be saved. She wanted to propose to come up with a motion on behalf of the four parties about the extra asylum plans of Wilders, from which the support of the entire coalition would be apparent for an even more strict asylum policy. But Wilders hadn’t let her finish. He demanded a signature of all three, and it didn’t come. It was ready for him.

In the corridor, Yesilgöz says: « We are embarrassed. » Now it happened what the VVD has been afraid for a while: a cabinet crisis just before the NATO summit in The Hague, at the end of June, with the leaders of all NATO countries and Mark Rutte as host.

In Paris

The ministers and state secretaries of the PVV see the news of their immediate departure from the cabinet on their phone, none of them had counted there. Minister Reinette Klever for Foreign Trade sees the message in Paris, she walks on the street, en route to a meeting of the OECD with other ministers. State Secretary for Kingdom Relations and Digitization Zolt Szabó is at his Ministry. He was really looking forward to the presentation of the Dutch digitization strategy, this Friday in the Council of Ministers and on Tuesday he hopes that he might stay in the cabinet all morning to finish his work. Dirk Beljaarts, Minister of Economic Affairs, wants that too.

Ingrid Coenradie, departing State Secretary for Justice and Security, arrives at the Catshuis prior to the entry -laws.

Photo Bart Maat

It is mainly Ingrid Coenradie, PVV State Secretary of Justice, who makes it a point in the extra Council of Ministers on Tuesday afternoon, in the Catshuis. For a while she no longer feels like a PVV player, she has no contact with Wilders anymore since their arguments about the overcrowded prisons and the release of prisoners, because there is too few staff. Coenradie also wants to stay in the cabinet. But for that she needs the support of VVD, NSC and BBB.

She is told by the Deputy Prime Ministers of those parties that it should be voted on. They hope, they say, it doesn’t have to come that far. They mean: you don’t have a chance. Coenradie is crying.

‘Irresponsible’

At the door of the Catshuis a lectern is ready at half past three, and a microphone. There is also special lighting. Shoved, it is painted, takes a paper out of his inner pocket. He says that he informed the four party leaders a few times the days before that the fall of the cabinet was « unnecessary and irresponsible » to him. « Decisiveness » was needed, no « delay. » He also starts about himself: he remains as a outgoing prime minister, until there is a new cabinet, with a new prime minister.

I put on shorts, take a glass of white wine. And go do what I never do: watch talk shows, zap a little

In the evening he calls with party leaders in the Lower House: how do they want to continue? On Wednesday morning at a quarter past ten there is a debate about that. PVV member Barry Madlener, until Tuesday afternoon Minister of Infrastructure and Water Management, is planning to sleep out for a long time. « I just thought of that in the Council of Ministers, » he says at the Catshuis, just before he gets into his service car for the last time. « I don’t put an alarm clock. » And when he will be home later: « I put on shorts and take a glass of white wine. And then I will do what I never do: watch talk shows, zap a little. » He will miss his work, he says, and also the officials at his ministry. « I am an emotional person. »

The grief that nobody sees is with the partners of the PVV ministers and state secretaries. In the Cabinet Schoof, the ‘partners of’ organized dinner in the Catshuis every few months, sometimes with a quiz. They cooked together, they shared joys and sorrows, they understood each other. The partners of the PVV people fully participated in that, they thought it was great. That is also over now.

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