THE HAGUE, Netherlands — Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte is visiting the king to turn in the resignation of his four-party coalition and set the deeply divided Netherlands on track for a general election later this year.
King Willem-Alexander flew back from a family vacation in Greece to meet with Rutte on Saturday.
The vexed issue of reining in migration that has troubled countries across Europe for years was the final stumbling block that brought down Rutte’s government Friday night, exposing the deep ideological differences between the four parties that made up the uneasy coalition.
Now it is likely to dominate campaigning for an election that is still months away.
“We are the party that can ensure a majority to significantly restrict the flow of asylum seekers,” said Geert Wilders, leader of the anti-immigration Party for Freedom, who supported Rutte’s first minority coalition 13 years ago, but also ultimately brought it down.
Opposition parties on the left also want to make the election about tackling problems they accuse Rutte of failing to adequately address — from climate change to a chronic housing shortage and the future of the nation’s multibillion-euro (-dollar) agricultural sector.
Socialist Party leader Lilian Marijnissen told Dutch broadcaster NOS the collapse of Rutte’s government was “good news for the Netherlands. I think that everybody felt that this Cabinet was done. They have created more problems than they solved.”
Despite the divisions between the four parties in Rutte’s government, it will remain in power as a caretaker administration until a new coalition is formed, but will not pass major new laws.
“Given the challenges of the times, a war on this continent, nobody profits from a political crisis,” tweeted Sigrid Kaag, leader of the centrist, pro-Europe D66 party.
Rutte, the Netherlands’ longest serving premier and a veteran consensus builder, appeared to be the one who was prepared to torpedo his fourth coalition government with…
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