- By Robert Greenall
- BBC News
Jul 7, 2023 at 7:38pm BST
Updated 31 minutes ago
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Mr Rutte has held talks for three days to try to save his coalition
According to media reports, the Dutch government has collapsed due to differences between the coalition parties over asylum policy.
In the crisis talks chaired by Prime Minister Mark Rutte, the four parties failed to reach an agreement.
The government was formed a year and a half ago, but the parties have been diametrically opposed on migration policy for some time.
New elections are expected to be held in the fall.
Mr Rutte’s office has not yet confirmed the collapse but said he would speak to journalists after holding an emergency cabinet meeting on Friday night.
His conservative VVD party had tried to limit the influx of asylum seekers after a row last year over overcrowded migration centers.
This week, Mr Rutte tried to push through a plan that would cap the number of family members of war refugees who could enter the Netherlands to just 200 a month.
But the smaller coalition partners, the Christian Union, a family-friendly party, and the social-liberal party D66 were strongly opposed.
A compromise proposal known as the “emergency brake,” which would only trigger the restrictions if the influx of migrants were too high, was not enough to save the government.
Mr Rutte, 56, is the country’s longest-serving prime minister, having been in office since 2010. The current government, which took office in January 2022, is his fourth coalition.
Due to the rise of right-wing extremist parties such as Geert Wilders’ PVV, he is under pressure when it comes to migration.