2010 Dutch cabinet formation

Following the Dutch general election of 2010, held on June 9, a process of cabinet formation started, which typically involves 3 phases:

On June 10 and 11 the chairs of parliamentary parties (fractievoorzitters) of the House of Representatives (Tweede Kamer) gave advice to the Queen on who should be appointed informateur and who should be involved in the first information talks. The leaders of the political parties with most seats indicated that an informateur from the VVD, the largest party after the election, should investigate the possibility of a coalition with the PVV, which achieved the biggest gain of seats.

On June 12 Queen Beatrix nominated Uri Rosenthal, chairman of the VVD in the Senate (Eerste Kamer), as informateur, in order to investigate, first, the possibility of a coalition containing VVD and PVV.

On June 14 Rosenthal met with all party leaders individually. Maxime Verhagen (CDA) wanted VVD and PVV to bridge their mutual differences before joining in discussions between those two parties. After two days of joint talks with Mark Rutte (VVD) and Geert Wilders (PVV), and individually with the leaders of VVD, PVV and CDA, on June 17 Rosenthal had to conclude that a combination of these three parties was impossible.

On June 18 Rosenthal conferred subsequently with Job Cohen (PvdA), Maxime Verhagen (CDA), Alexander Pechtold (D66), Femke Halsema (GroenLinks) and Mark Rutte (VVD). Two coalitions were possible with these parties: Purple-plus (Paars-plus) (VVD+PvdA+D66+GL) and a center-coalition of VVD+PvdA+CDA. Purple-plus was the preference of PvdA, D66 and GroenLinks, while Rutte was in favour of the center-coalition. At the end of the day informateur Rosenthal announced that he would explore the possibilities for Purple-plus, starting on Monday, June 21.

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Wikipedia