Dutch PM Calls for Crisis Talks        11/13 06:11

   

   THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) -- Dutch Prime Minister Rob Jetten called a 
crisis meeting Friday with the senior leaders of his two coalition partners, 
seeking to ease open acrimony in the three-party minority administration less 
than nine months into its four-year term.

   Jetten said he was seeking a reboot. He told lawmakers Thursday that his 
coalition "must make a very serious fresh start, in order to function much 
better together."

   It is the latest crisis in a splintered political landscape in the 
Netherlands that has seen four general elections in a decade and eroded public 
trust in the nation's lawmakers.

   Jetten, the Netherlands' youngest premier, took office pledging to seek a 
new era of consensus among parties in the Dutch parliament, but has so far 
struggled to rein in political infighting among parties in the legislature and 
even in his own coalition.

   The already fragile unity in Jetten's Cabinet took a hit this week when 
lawmakers from his centrist D66 party and the center-right Christian Democrats 
(CDA) agreed to amendments proposed by two center-left opposition parties -- 
PRO and Volt -- to push a tax package through the Dutch parliament in a tight 
vote Thursday night after a daylong debate.

   But the terms of the deal -- PRO's leader Jesse Klaver repeatedly called 
part of the agreement a "millionaire's tax" -- enraged the coalition's third 
partner, the right-wing, pro-business People's Party for Freedom and Democracy, 
or VVD.

   VVD lawmakers voted against the tax plan and the party's parliamentary 
leader, Ruben Brekelmans, told reporters that it was "disconcerting" how 
coalition partners had acted.

   "I didn't expect the CDA and D66 to take such a huge turn to the left," he 
said. "Bad for our economy, bad for business in the Netherlands, bad for our 
country."

   He said he would discuss the outcome with his party.

   Jetten skipped a European leaders' summit in Ireland to attend Thursday's 
debate in parliament about the tax measures.

   After the vote he said he would call his two vice premiers -- one each from 
the CDA and VVD -- for a meeting Friday morning as he seeks to hold together 
the coalition.

   "No one is waiting for endless political squabbling in The Hague or for new 
elections, and we must do everything in our power to find a way forward 
together," he said.