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.
King Willem-Alexander flew back from a family vacation in Greece to meet with Rutte, who drove to the palace in his Saab station wagon for the meeting. The vexed issue of
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-dollar agricultural sector. 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.
Rutte negotiated for months over a package of measures to reduce the flow of new migrants arriving in the country of nearly 18 million people. Proposals reportedly included creating two classes of asylum - a temporary one for people fleeing conflicts and a permanent one for people trying to escape persecution - and reducing the number of family members who are allowed to join asylum-seekers in the Netherlands.
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