The vexed issue of reining in migration that has troubled countries across Europe for years was the final stumbling block that brought down Rutte's government Friday night.
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte visited the king Saturday to turn in the resignation of his four-party coalition and set the deeply divided Netherlands on track for a general election later this year.
Opposition parties on the left also want to make the election about tackling problems they accuse Rutte of failing to adequately address — from climate change to a chronic housing shortage and the future of the nation's multibillion-euro agricultural sector. Rutte declined to answer reporters' questions as he drove away from the meeting that lasted over an hour, saying the talks with the monarch were private.
Despite the divisions between the four parties in Rutte's government, it will remain in power as a caretaker administration until a new coalition is formed, but will not pass major new laws. The fall of the government comes just months after a new, populist pro-farmer party, the Farmers Citizens Movement, known by its Dutch acronym BBB, shocked the political establishment by winning provincial elections. The party is already the largest bloc in the Dutch Senate and will be a serious threat to Rutte's People's Party for Freedom and Democracy.
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