New Dutch minority government sworn in under centrist Prime Minister Rob Jetten

Euronews · Feb 23, 2026 · Collected from RSS

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Published on 23/02/2026 - 11:47 GMT+1•Updated 11:48 Dutch King Willem-Alexander swore in a new minority Dutch coalition government on Monday, led by Rob Jetten, the Netherlands' youngest-ever prime minister, wishing them good luck “in uncertain times”. The three-party administration, which took 117 days to form, is made up of Jetten's centrist liberal D66 — Democrats 66 — party, the centre-right Christian Democrats and the centre-right People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD). The minority coalition holds only 66 of the lower house of parliament's 150 seats. Jetten will therefore have to negotiate with opposition lawmakers on each piece of legislation his government proposes. That is likely to be tough, given that the biggest opposition bloc, the newly merged Green Left and Labour Party (GroenLinks–PvdA), has already expressed strong objections to Jetten's plans to cut health care and welfare costs. The prime minister and his team of ministers were sworn in by the king in the Orange Hall of the Royal Palace Huis ten Bosch in The Hague. Following a traditional photo of the new Cabinet on the palace steps, the new government plans to begin work with its first meeting in the afternoon. In October, D66 narrowly won from the far-right Party for Freedom (PVV) in a nail-biting snap parliamentary election race. The snap election was called after PVV withdrew from the previous coalition, the country's most right-wing government in recent history. The liberal centrist party was last in government during the final term of former Prime Minister Mark Rutte, which fell in 2023 following a crisis regarding asylum. Jetten, who is also the country's first openly gay premier, himself served as minister for climate and energy policy in the last coalition under Rutte until 2024. Jetten campaigned hard for a return to “progressive” politics, focusing on green energy to keep energy costs down, building cities to tackle the housing crisis and easing the strain on the healthcare system by prioritising illness prevention. On the subject of housing, the centrist politician said he wanted to build 10 new towns, and that cutting red tape would allow 100,000 new homes a year to be completed. Meanwhile, on the divisive issue of migration, Jetten pledged to spend more on integration programmes and to tackle illegal immigration by allowing asylum claims to be made from outside the EU. Jetten, who is looking to reset the Netherlands' influential role in the EU after it was seen as having eroded under the previous government, said on the campaign trail that he wanted to "bring the Netherlands back to the heart of Europe because without European cooperation, we are nowhere". The prime minister also underscored the importance of ties with the US, a major trading partner for the Dutch economy.