Dutch prime minister calls crisis talks as coalition acrimony erupts over tax package

The Hague: Dutch Prime Minister Rob Jetten called a crisis meeting Friday with the senior leaders of his two coalition partners, seeking to ease open acrimony in the three-party minority administration less than nine months into its four-year term.

Jetten said he was seeking a reboot. He told lawmakers Thursday that his coalition “must make a very serious fresh start, in order to function much better together.”

It is the latest crisis in a splintered political landscape in the Netherlands that has seen four general elections in a decade and eroded public trust in the nation's lawmakers.

Jetten, the Netherlands' youngest premier, took office pledging to seek a new era of consensus among parties in the Dutch parliament, but has so far struggled to rein in political infighting among parties in the legislature and even in his own coalition.

The already fragile unity in Jetten's Cabinet took a hit this week when lawmakers from his centrist D66 party and the centre-right Christian Democrats (CDA) agreed to amendments proposed by two centre-left opposition parties -- PRO and Volt -- to push a tax package through the Dutch parliament in a tight vote Thursday night after a daylong debate.

But the terms of the deal -- PRO's leader Jesse Klaver repeatedly called part of the agreement a “millionaire's tax” -- enraged the coalition's third partner, the right-wing, pro-business People's Party for Freedom and Democracy, or VVD.

VVD lawmakers voted against the tax plan and the party's parliamentary leader, Ruben Brekelmans, told reporters that it was “disconcerting” how coalition partners had acted.

“I didn't expect the CDA and D66 to take such a huge turn to the left,” he said. “Bad for our economy, bad for business in the Netherlands, bad for our country.”

He said he would discuss the outcome with his party.

Jetten skipped a European leaders' summit in Ireland to attend Thursday's debate in parliament about the tax measures.

After the vote he said he would call his two vice premiers -- one each from the CDA and VVD -- for a meeting Friday morning as he seeks to hold together the coalition.

“No one is waiting for endless political squabbling in The Hague or for new elections, and we must do everything in our power to find a way forward together,” he said.

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