The Dutch government survives a vote its own coalition partner tried to sink, and calls the truce temporary

The Dutch government is still standing, but only after the party that voted against its own budget agreed to stay.

After roughly seven hours of talks in The Hague on Friday, Prime Minister Rob Jetten, of the liberal-progressive D66, and the leaders of his two partners, the right-liberal VVD and the Christian Democrat CDA, emerged with the coalition intact. Word that the VVD would stay came shortly before Jetten’s press conference on Friday evening, early on Saturday morning Perth time.

Jetten said the relationship “can and must be better”, and that “the conversation is not yet over”. Talks are expected to resume over the weekend.

How did a government vote against itself?

The fight is over who pays. On Thursday, D66 and the CDA, unable to win over parties on the right, struck a deal with two opposition parties, the left-wing Progressive Netherlands (PRO) and the pro-European Volt, to amend the government’s 2027 tax plan.

The amendments raise about €1 billion a year from higher-income and wealthier households, and use about €900 million for tax breaks and cost-of-living support for people on lower and middle incomes. The left had campaigned for a “millionaires’ tax”; this is a scaled-down version.

The VVD said the deal broke the coalition agreement and warned it would vote against the whole plan if the amendment was adopted. It did. The plan still passed the lower house by one vote.

What does the VVD want now?

Its leader, Dilan Yeşilgöz-Zegerius, was harsher than the prime minister. She called the minority cabinet “a failed experiment” and demanded two corrections: a change of policy to protect entrepreneurs and investors, and a political correction to stop what she sees as D66 and the CDA leaning on the left to pass laws.

She also acknowledged that nobody wants another election now. That is the glue holding the coalition together.

Why is this government so fragile?

Because it was built that way. Jetten’s three-party cabinet was sworn in on 23 February with 66 of the 150 seats in the lower house, well short of a majority, and the parliament is split into 17 groups. Every major law needs votes from outside the coalition, which is exactly how Thursday’s crisis happened.

The Netherlands has been here recently. The previous government, led by Dick Schoof, collapsed in June 2025 when Geert Wilders’ PVV walked out over asylum policy, triggering the October 2025 election in which D66 won the most votes. A fresh collapse would mean another long round of coalition talks in one of Europe’s most fragmented parliaments.

What does it mean beyond the Netherlands?

The Dutch argument over taxing wealth is one many governments are having, Australia included, where the tax treatment of very large superannuation balances has been fought over for several years. The Dutch case shows the political cost: a governing party preferred to vote down its own budget rather than accept a higher tax on the wealthy.

The Netherlands is the European Union’s fifth-largest economy, so the stability of its government matters well beyond its borders, including in the EU budget and Ukraine talks now under way.

VNN will update this story as more is confirmed.