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The third Balkenende cabinet was formed on 7 July 2006 after a crisis in and the subsequent resignation of the second Balkenende cabinet. This demissionary minority cabinet of Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) and People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) was negotiated by former prime minister Ruud Lubbers.[1] The main tasks for this interim cabinet were the preparations for the early general election on 22 November 2006 and the preparation of the 2007 budget. On February 22, 2007, the cabinet was succeeded by the fourth Balkenende cabinet, consisting of the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA), Labour Party (PvdA) and ChristianUnion (CU).
Although only a minority of members of the House of Representatives was represented in the cabinet, the cabinet had full power to propose laws, each of which needed to be supported by an ad hoc majority in parliament. The constituent parties of the third Balkenende cabinet did have a majority (38 seats to 37 seats) in the Senate.
Minority cabinets are rare in Dutch politics: the previous minority cabinet was the 1982-1983 third Van Agt cabinet.
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The third Balkenende cabinet consists of 16 ministers and 7 junior ministers (staatssecretaris). These positions are divided among the coalition members according to their size in parliament: CDA supplies 9 ministers and 4 junior ministers and VVD supplies 7 ministers and 3 junior ministers. All members of this cabinet also served in the second Balkenende cabinet, except for junior minister for Education Bruno Bruins, who was scheduled to succeed former junior minister Mark Rutte, when the second Balkenende cabinet fell unexpectedly. Joop Wijn (economic affairs) and Atzo Nicolaï (governmental reform and kingdom relations) were promoted from junior minister to full minister to replace the D66 ministers in the second Balkenende cabinet.[2]
October 27, 2005, a fire erupted at a detention center at Schiphol airport, resulting in the death of 11 detainees from foreign countries. From the start doubts were shed on the organisation of the involved government agencies. On the 21st September 2006 the Dutch Safety Board presented the final report on the problems in the Schiphol prison. The report explicitly stated that 'fewer or even no casualties' would have occurred if the government had upheld the legal safety standards. Based on these harsh conclusions ministers Donner (Justice), responsible for prisons, and Dekker (Housing), responsible for government buildings resigned immediately. Also Fons Hertog, the mayor of Haarlemmermeer, in which Schiphol airport is located, resigned at the same day.
On 22 September 2006 two new ministers were assigned to the posts left by Donner and Dekker. Ernst Hirsch Ballin of the CDA was the new Minister of Justice. During a much earlier third Lubbers cabinet he held the same position, from which he resigned in 1994 after the IRT-affair. Until his appointment as Minister of Justice, he was the president of the Administrative law Division of the Dutch Council of State. A former Minister of the Environment in the first Lubbers cabinet, Pieter Winsemius of the VVD, replaced Dekker. He therefore resigned as a member of the Dutch Scientific Council for Government Policy.[3]
On November 30, 2006 the new parliament was sworn in, including several members of the then demissionary cabinet. Because of the election results, this House of Representatives had a majority of parties that opposed the course of the third cabinet Balkenende on important issues. One important election issue was an amnesty for a specific group of asylum seekers. This group originally consisted of 26.000 and later 38.000 people who had been in an administrative process since 2001, many of their children were raised exclusively in the Netherlands. The Minister for Integration and Immigration Rita Verdonk was currently looking into each of these dossiers to assess their future: either an expulsion or permanent residence. On December 1 the new House of Representatives adopted a motion to suspend all expulsions of asylum seekers from this group until a final decision on a general amnesty was made. Balkenende reacted annoyed as he stated that this ad-hoc left wing coalition (including PvdA and SP) was not a good basis for negotiations for a stable government.[4] On December 5, the cabinet announced that it refused to execute this motion. It had three reasons for this, first it claimed that a parliament which deals with a care taker cabinet cannot demand that cabinet to implement new policy, second it argued that a general amnesty would only attract more asylum seekers and it also raised several questions on what specific groups of asylum seekers should be amnestied and what the legal consequences would be for other groups not included in the amnesty. Minister Verdonk did announce that the expulsion would be suspended until the next parliamentary debate.[5] A majority in the House of Representatives now proposed to stop the expulsion of asylum seekers until the formation talks were finished, and allowing the formation talks to solve this issue, again the minister refused to execute this.[6][7] On 13 December, the House of Representatives decided to respond to this unwillingness by a motion of no confidence specifically oriented at Minister Verdonk. The leader of the VVD, Mark Rutte announced that if Minister Verdonk would be forced to leave the cabinet all VVD ministers would leave: leaving only seven CDA ministers in the cabinet. On 14 December the cabinet held a meeting on how to respond to this motion: the cabinet found the solution in a small reshuffle in portfolios between Verdonk and Ernst Hirsch Balin, the Minister of Justice, who became responsible for migration, while Verdonk became responsible for youth criminality. Hirsh Balin could then partially execute the House of Representatives motion calling for a temporary halt to expulsions, and the VVD would be allowed to voice its opposition to this decision, breaking the principle that cabinets speak with one voice.[8]
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