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The cabinet is resuming talks with seven opposition parties this week as it tries to secure the votes it needs to steer its budget for next year through parliament.
Prime minister Rob Jetten and finance minister Eelco Heinen still hope they can win support from both sides for a broad deal, despite warnings from party leaders that their demands are irreconcilable.
The largest opposition party, the left-wing Pro, is calling for the coalition parties to scrap plans to raise income tax to fill the gap created after it abandoned its welfare cuts, under pressure from Pro and the trade unions.
Pro and the pro-European party Volt say the money should be raised instead through higher taxes on savings and investments, but Heinen’s party, the liberal-conservative VVD, want to replace the wealth tax system with a capital gains tax.
The minority coalition of D66, VVD and CDA needs the support of at least two opposition parties to secure its legislation through parliament.
Pro and Volt have enough seats in the two houses of parliament to guarantee a majority, but the VVD fear that making too many concessions on the left will damage their already precarious standing in the opinion polls.
Asylum and nitrogen
Many VVD voters were dismayed by Heinen’s proposed reforms to the “box 3” wealth tax, which would have led to people with modest investment portfolios paying more, prompting the finance minister to go back to the drawing board.
Opposition parties on the right, such as JA21, are pressing the cabinet to tighten the rules on asylum further as the price for their support.
JA21 leader Joost Eerdmans wants the status of all 70,000 Syrian refugees in the Netherlands to be reviewed and asylum claims to be processed outside the EU. The party also wants to water down the so-called “spreading law” so that the government in The Hague cannot force municipalities to take in minimum numbers of asylum seekers.
Agriculture minister Jaimi van Essen is also expected to take part in the talks, suggesting the cabinet is prepared to compromise on its plans to cut nitrogen pollution, even though Pro has warned the reforms “must not be weakened”.
Another pivotal issue is likely to be the proposed surrogacy law, which the orthodox Protestant party SGP wants the cabinet to withdraw.
The bill was put in the spotlight last week when Jetten and his partner Nicolás Keenan announced they were having a baby next year with the help of a surrogate mother.
At the moment there is no law regulating surrogacy in the Netherlands. Couples who make their own arrangements must have the child adopted before they are legally recognised as parents.
The SGP have said they will not support the cabinet unless it withdraws a bill that would recognise the rights of parents who have children born through surrogacy immediately.
The party also wants the government to intervene to stop hospitals offering to perform abortions after 22 weeks without a compelling medical reason.