This week, the Financial Times wrote an editorial saying that the right-wing minority coalition in the works in the Netherlands shows that the Dutch are getting it right. Michiel van Hulten, former Labour party chairman, disagrees.

The Dutch centre-left lost the general election held on June 9, so it is only natural (although not inevitable) that the Netherlands should be heading for a government of the centre-right. Having said that, your enthusiastic backing for a minority administration consisting of Liberals and Christian Democrats and backed by Geert Wilders’ Freeedom party is somewhat baffling (“The Dutch get it right on coalition”, Editorial, August 3).
You argue that such a government “would be less likely to suffer from the internal instability that brought down the previous ‘grand coalition’ between the Christian Democrats and the Labour party”. Yet the new government would be able to count on the support of just 76 out of 150 members of the lower house, a majority of one. That would be the narrowest majority of any government in modern Dutch history, let alone a minority government.
It would take just one dissident from within the coalition ranks to bring it down – not an unlikely scenario, given the recent challenge to Mr Wilders’ leadership by one of his own MPs, and the Christian Democrats’ internal disagreements on whether to join the coalition in the first place. In the Senate, where the Freedom party is not represented, the new government would fall three seats short of a majority, thus undermining its ability to pass controversial legislation when a raft of such legislation is expected. Hardly a recipe for stability.
Furthermore, under the proposed agreement Mr Wilders would remain on the backbenches, allowing him to criticise unpopular government policies while continuing to expound his divisive views on issues such as crime, immigration and Europe.
Although the coalition agreement might secure the “protection of citizens’ basic liberties” and “fall short of the oppressive and misguided policies” espoused by Mr Wilders, as your editorial suggests, he would be free to pursue his public vendetta against Muslims, immigrants and others who don’t conform to his ideal of the modern Dutch citizen.
The Liberals and Christian Democrats have already said they can “accept” Mr Wilders’ position on these issues, but it is difficult to see how such an arrangement would not lead to tensions, either within the coalition or in society as a whole. It also threatens to further undermine the Netherlands’ standing abroad, where the subtleties of Dutch coalition politics might not be so easily understood.
There are other reasons to be concerned about the likely policies of such a minority government: refusal to countenance reform of the stagnating housing market, failure to tackle gridlock on the roads, budget cuts that would mainly have an adverse impact on low and middle-income earners, and opposition to Turkish membership of the European Union, to name but a few. But unless the Christian Democrats have a last-minute change of heart, such a government now looks likely.
To accept this looming reality is one thing. To argue, as your editorial does, that such a government would be “effective and just”, is quite another.

Michiel van Hulten is a former chairman of the Dutch Labour party and a member of the European Council on Foreign Relations. His blog is www.michielvanhulten.nl