Loyal readers may have noticed the lack of fresh content. My apologies for the radio silence. I wanted to wait until the news was final: I have started a new job! Which is exciting for me, but also why I’m largely quitting journalism, at least for now.

I’ve been hired by the Dutch Animal Coalition (Liberal Green, the sustainability network of my political party.

Liberal Green does not do animal welfare per se, so the positions should be complementary. But between a paid job and the time I volunteer in Liberal Green, continuing with journalism is just too much.

The Atlantic Sentinel will remain here in archive, as will the newsletter on Substack. I have disabled paid subscriptions, however, and if you recently signed up and paid for a year, you should get the money back.

All Dutch readers (or readers with a .nl email address) have been automatically enrolled in my personal newsletter, which contains an archive of my Dutch-language journalism and where I’ll write about the issues that touch on my lobby and political work. I hope to see some of you there!

When I wrote about the three mistakes people make about cultivated meat — comparing its current price to that of traditional (and subsidized) meat, comparing cultivated meat to a perfect world, and betting against progress — I also pointed out the industry does have real challenges:

1. Growing more than muscle fibers in order to make complex meats, like steaks.
2. Cultivating meat at scale.
3. Getting regulatory and political approval.

I investigated those challenges for Nieuwe Oogst, a Dutch agrarian magazine. Here is a summary for English readers.

1. Growing more than muscle

So far companies have been able to grow muscle fibers from animal cells. That means they can cultivate nuggets, patties and sausages, but not more complex meats, like steaks.

Dwayne Holmes, the EU director for responsible research and innovation at New Harvest, a research institute, explained the challenge to me:

Making complex structures is not just about having the right cell types (grown separately), but rather is dependent on having some method where cells can assemble, grow and mature in the 3D shapes and structures one sees in traditional meat.

Different companies are taking different approaches to this. The use of “scaffolds”, usually made from animal-derived collagen or gelatin, is a popular method. The downside is that it gives the end product a slightly different texture than meat from slaughtered animals.

Cultured steaks may still be some years away. “We estimate it will take a while before those reach the Dutch market,” a spokeswoman for the Dutch meat industry lobby (COV) told me.

Short term, both they and Holmes see potential in mixed products: partly cultivated, partly plant-based. They would initially compete with vegetarian meat substitutes, but Holmes believes they may eventually tempt carnivores as well:

It is possible that cell components would add sufficient sensory profiles that the hybrids compare and end up competing with traditional meat products.

Agricultural and meat lobbies elsewhere have disparaged cultivated meat as “fake”, unethical, unhealthy and a threat to farmers. COV is more pragmatic, saying,

It would be naive to presume there won’t be a market for cultivated meat in the future.

2. Cheaper feed, bigger bioreactors

Much hinges on the industry’s ability to scale up. One challenge is feed. Mosa Meat, a Dutch company, can grow up to 160,000 burgers from one gram of animal cells. The cells are fed nutrients and vitamins in a biotank matching those cows would derive from eating grass and feed.

But nutrients are expensive. Mosa Meat and the Dutch animal nutrition company Nutreco have received an EU grant to develop cheaper alternatives.

The bioreactors are the other scale-up challenge. Most companies use tanks of 50 liters, which give them 5 kilograms of meat. Meatable, Mosa Meat’s competitor, estimates that 10,000-liter tanks are needed in order to compete with the livestock industry.

They have partnered with DSM, which already builds bioreactors for pharmaceutical companies. In America, Good Meat says it is planning to build tanks of 250,000 liters.

Whether that’s possible, and whether it will be profitable to cultivate meat at such a scale, is still uncertain.

3. Regulatory and political approval

In July, the United States became the second country in the world after Singapore to approve the sale of cultivated meat. Israel could become the third: its regulators are assessing applications by food companies. Israel’s Aleph Farms has also submitted an application in Switzerland.

Europe would fall behind. What makes it stand out is that the EU approval process involves not just regulators, but politicians.

It is unlikely the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) would reject a product that has been found safe by its counterparts in America, Israel and Singapore. But once the EFSA signs off, the application goes to the council of European agriculture ministers, who decide if the product can come on the EU market. It only takes four member states, representing 35 percent of the EU population, to block market access.

Italy has preemptively banned cultivated meat. France is skeptical as well. Together they have 28 percent of the EU population.

No wonder companies like Meatable are shifting their production to Singapore.

King Felipe VI has asked the leader of Spain’s conservative People’s Party, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, to try to form a government.

He is unlikely to succeed.

Feijóo’s party won the election in July with 136 out of 350 seats, but even with the backing of the far-right Vox (Voice), which has 33 seats, and the one deputy of the Navarrese People’s Union, he would fall five votes short of a majority.

Outgoing prime minister, and Socialist Party leader, Pedro Sánchez stands a better chance of cobbling together a majority — but only just.

No election for Christmas

Congress will debate whether to support Feijóo on September 26 and 27. That will start the clock on a two-month deadline, after which Spaniards must return to the polls if no candidate wins a majority. Reelections would follow within 47 days: early January.

The reason Congress is waiting a full month before debating Feijóo’s attempt is that an earlier date would have put reelections around Christmas time in the case of failure.

Feijóo’s best hope

If, as seems almost certain, Feijóo does not get an outright majority of 176 votes on the first ballot, he could call a second vote where a simple majority of more votes in favor than against would suffice.

Feijóo’s hope is that, by then, the separatist Together for Catalonia, which has seven seats, would abstain and the center-right Canarian Coalition, which has one deputy, would join him.

But Sánchez has courted Together, which is still led by former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont from self-imposed exile in Belgium, while the Canarian Coalition’s one deputy, Ana Oramas, has said she will not vote for Feijóo if he forms a coalition with Vox. She could support a minority center-right government that merely has Vox‘ support in Congress.

The center-right Basque Nationalist Party (PNV), which has six seats, refuses even that option. Vox is in favor of defunding the Basque and Catalan regional governments and recentralizing most power in Madrid.

Sánchez also needs Catalans to abstain

The PNV and the left-wing separatist parties of the Basque Country and Catalonia — EH Bildu and the Republican Left — would support Sánchez outright. He can also count on the far-left Sumar (Unite) and the middle-of-the-road Galician Nationalist Bloc, which gives him 171 seats.

Feijóo’s bloc has 171 seats as well.

Sánchez would need either Together to abstain and Oramas to vote for him, or the other way around.

Oramas voted against Sánchez after the last election in 2019. Her party governs Spain’s Atlantic islands with Feijóo’s PP. Switching her vote may be too much to ask, but she hasn’t ruled it out. Oramas told reporters a “first gesture to generating a climate of trust” would be for Sánchez to fully fund the Canary Islands’ budget request.

Catalan parties want amnesty

Sánchez’ Socialist Party and Sumar think they have a better chance with Together. The Catalan party supported the Socialists’ candidate for speaker, Francina Armengol, after Sánchez promised to endeavor to make Catalan, Basque and Galician official languages of the EU.

Both Together and the Republican Left have asked Sánchez to commit to a blanket amnesty for everyone involved in organizing the unsanctioned 2017 Catalan independence referendum. Sánchez pardoned the highest-profile organizers of the vote, which was held in defiance of Spain’s Constitutional Court, in 2021. Among them was the region’s former vice president, and Republican party leader, Oriol Junqueras, who had been sentenced to thirteen years in prison.

Puigdemont escaped prosecution by fleeing to Belgium, where he represents Catalonia in the European Parliament. He, and two former members of his cabinet, are still wanted by Spanish police for their role in the 2017 referendum and subsequent declaration of independence. Hundreds of civil servants, mayors and Catalan police officers are still on trial or have been convicted for abetting the referendum in some way.

Catalans have more demands

Together appears to have withdrawn its earlier demand for a legal referendum on independence in order to back Sánchez. The Socialists point to the Constitutional Court, which has ruled that independence referendums are illegal under the current Constitution. (Sumar would change the Constitution to make such referendums possible.)

Other Catalan demands include the full transfer of autonomies promised in 2006, when Catalonia’s self-government was formalized. In five years, the only power Sánchez has devolved to Catalonia is to award university scholarships.

Together and the Republican Left also want a congressional inquiry into the revelation that 65 Catalans, including the current regional president, Pere Aragonès, had their phones tapped by Spain’s national security agency. The Socialists blocked an investigation in 2022.

Dutch parliamentarian Pieter Omtzigt has thrown the November election in the Netherlands wide open by announcing the formation of a new political party.

His New Social Contract would replace the conservative Farmer-Citizen Movement (BBB) as one of the three parties vying for first place. The others are outgoing prime minister Mark Rutte’s People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD), led by Justice Minister Dilan Yeşilgöz, and the joint Labor Party-Green list, led by EU commissioner Frans Timmermans.

Omtzigt would cut support for the BBB in half, reducing the agrarians to sharing fourth place with Geert Wilders’ far-right Freedom Party (PVV).

Omtzigt’s unconventional mix of left- and right-wing policies would also enable him to lure voters away from the Socialists. And it opens up more possibilities for a coalition government after the election.

Omtzigt’s priorities

New Social Contract has yet to publish a manifesto, but Omtzigt’s priorities can be gleaned from his public and written statements:

• Ensure energy, food, health care and housing are affordable on minimum wage or welfare.

Currently 1 out of 18 million Dutch people are unable to pay their bills.

• Switch to a Danish-style electoral system with a majority of regional deputies supplemented by national seats to ensure proportionality.

All 150 members of the Dutch lower house are elected nationally. Omtzigt believes many have lost touch with the countryside. The 75 members of the upper chamber are indirectly elected by provincial deputies, but they don’t have the power to initiate legislation.

• Reduce immigration by cutting tax benefits for expats, halving slots for international students and giving some refugees shorter residence permits.

220,000 immigrants settled in the Netherlands last year, up from 100,000 in 2021. Distinguishing between permanent and temporary asylum is also a priority for the VVD (of which I am a member).

• Simplify the tax code by eliminating deductions and exemptions.

The biggest is the home mortgage interest deduction. There are also tax breaks for electric vehicles and uninsured health-care costs.

• Oppose further monetary integration in the EU, such as debt-sharing.

Mainstream center-right parties also oppose eurobonds, but Rutte agreed to partially finance the EU’s COVID-19 recovery program with jointly issued debts.

• Oppose the expropriation of farmers to reduce pollution.

This puts Omtzigt on the side of the BBB. The threat of one in three Dutch livestock farmers losing their business in order to shield EU-designated conservation areas from ammonia pollution is the main reason the BBB won the provincial elections in March.

Unlike the BBB, Omtzigt is no friend of factory farming. He often votes with the left on animal welfare.

Quit Christian Democrats

A former Christian Democrat, Omtzigt left his party shortly after the 2021 election, in which he had been bypassed for the leadership.

Omtzigt narrowly lost an internal leadership election in 2020 with 43.9 to 50.7 percent support for then-health minister Hugo de Jonge. When De Jonge resigned as leader after six months to focus on the COVID-19 pandemic, party leaders picked Finance Minister Wopke Hoekstra, not Omtzigt, to take his place without polling members.

Omtzigt won 342,000 votes in the election, enough for five seats. Polls suggest the Christian Democrats would struggle to win more than seven seats without him.

Could be kingmaker

Polls three months out from an election aren’t usually predictive in the Netherlands. Only a third of voters are loyal to a party. 10 to 20 percent don’t make up their minds until the final days of the campaign. Parties have yet to finalize and release their manifestos, and televised debates between party leaders can also make a big impact.

That said, the latest surveys hint at a pivotal role for New Social Contract after the election. Omtzigt says he has no interest in becoming prime minister, but he could be kingmaker.

A week ago, it looked like the VVD might have to choose between a coalition with the BBB and PVV, which would allow it to reform immigration but not agriculture, and a coalition with the left, which could keep climate policies and farm reforms on track at the expense of stricter immigration laws.

Yeşilgöz divided opinions in her party by opening the door to a deal with the PVV, arguing the liberals should reserve judgement until Wilders publishes his election program. Rutte had kept that door closed for eleven years after Wilders withdrew his support from a minority center-right government in 2012.

Omtzigt’s party could make a center-right government without the PVV possible or join a centrist coalition with the VVD and Labor-Green. A coalition of the VVD, BBB and Labor-Green is far less likely. The BBB scarcely acknowledges the need for farm reforms.

Either scenario would need a fourth party for a majority. Sixteen are projected to win seats, ranging from the animal rights party on the left to the pro-European D66 in the center to the pro-Putin Forum for Democracy on the far right.

Pedro Sánchez’ chances of remaining prime minister narrowed on Saturday, when the votes of almost 234,000 Spaniards living abroad were counted. His Socialist Workers’ Party lost one seat in Congress to Alberto Núñez Feijóo’s conservative People’s Party. The left- and right-wing blocs would have 171 seats each, assuming Sánchez can convince the two Basque nationalist parties and the center-left Republicans of Catalonia to support him.

The center-right Canarian Coalition, with one seat, and the centrist Junts (Together) of Catalonia, with seven seats, would hold the balance of power.

The Canarians refuse a deal that includes Vox (Voice). Feijóo has no realistic path to a majority without the far-right party, which won 33 seats. But the Canarians are unlikely to vote for Sánchez either. They may abstain.

Junts‘ demand — an independence referendum in Catalonia — is unacceptable to Sánchez. But the Basque branch of his Socialist Party has a plan that might just win Junts over: a federal Spain.

Sánchez balked last time

I called for federalizing Spain in the Netherlands’ NRC newspaper in 2018, when Sánchez first came to power with the support of Basque and Catalan nationalists. He balked at the time, whether out of personal conviction or calculation that giving the regions more power would infuriate the rest of the country.

However, even his minimal concessions to Catalans — the restoration of home rule, withdrawn by a conservative government after the dubious 2017 independence referendum, and a pardon for its organizers — have outraged Spanish nationalists. Outside the Basque Country and Catalonia, a majority of Spaniards believe Catalonia has too much autonomy rather than too little.

Conservatives canceled Catalan home rule

The 2017 referendum was held in defiance of Spain’s central government and Constitutional Court. Most unionists boycotted it. The separatists nevertheless claimed the result — 90 percent for independence with 43 percent turnout — as a mandate to break away.

Spain was governed by Feijóo’s People’s Party at the time, which had for years refused to negotiate devolution with an increasingly agitated Catalan government. It removed them from power after the referendum. It was the first time since the restoration of Spanish democracy that a region had its autonomy pulled.

The organizers of the referendum, including seven regional ministers, were imprisoned and convicted of sedition. Sánchez let them out and also abolished sedition as a crime, making Spain one of the last European countries to do so. (Belarus still has it.)

Federation has advantages

Sánchez insists he will not sanction an independence referendum. Junts may want to reconsider its red line. Polls suggest a majority of Catalans would vote to stay in Spain. If Junts doesn’t help Sánchez, the country may need to hold a repeat election in December or the new year, and they could lose seats. The Catalan separatist parties lost nine of their 23 seats in Congress this time.

Federalization would be popular: two-thirds of Catalans support it. And, as I argued in 2018, it has two concrete advantages:

1. It would make home rule in the Basque Country, Catalonia and other regions that want it irrevocable. So no repetition of the 2017-18 suspension of self-government.
2. It could give Catalonia the same fiscal autonomy as the Basques. The Basque Country collects its own taxes, keeps what it needs and sends the rest to Madrid. In Catalonia, the national government collects most taxes and consistently underspends the money it promises to pay the region back.

Give Catalans a reason to stay

There is also an emotional upside. A federation would recognize the Basques and Catalans as nations within Spain.

A majority-conservative Constitutional Court infamously struck this definition from Catalonia’s autonomy statute in 2010. Coinciding with demands for spending cuts from Madrid, the decision invigorated the Catalan separatist movement. At its peak, it brought 1.5 out of 7.5 million Catalans to the streets. Polls for the first time found over 50 percent support for independence. Separatist parties have won majorities in regional elections since.

One of the prime motivators of Catalan separatism, I learned in my three-and-a-half years in Barcelona, is not that Catalonia pay more to Spain than it gets back or that the region doesn’t have full control over its housing, labor and social-security policies; it’s that other Spaniards resent their separate sense of identity. Many Catalans, even unionists, are proud of their history, their language and their traditions. The hostility Catalanism meets in other — especially the conservative — parts of Spain is shocking. It’s why millions of Catalans believe still their best option is to secede.

Formalizing Catalonia’s, and the Basque Country’s, separate status, and removing the threat of a future conservative government taking that status away, would go to a long way to convincing the majority of Catalans they have a future in Spain.

The Dutch parliamentary elections in November are shaping up to become a three-way race.

Outgoing prime minister Mark Rutte’s People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) is neck and neck in the polls with the conservative Farmer-Citizen Movement (BBB) and a joint list of the Labor Party and Greens. All three have between 15 and 18 percent support.

Geert Wilders’ nationalist Freedom Party is polling in fourth place with 9 to 12 percent. Ten other parties are below 7 percent.

That makes it hard to imagine a coalition government that doesn’t include at least two of the three largest parties. The VVD (of which I am a member) may need to choose between a coalition with the right or the left. Both pose risks. Either would require a third and probably a fourth party for majority.

Timmermans returns home

Rutte’s unexpected resignation after thirteen years in power, and seventeen years as liberal party leader, accelerated plans for a left-wing merger. Frans Timmermans, the Netherlands’ EU commissioner, is the most popular candidate by far to lead a united Labor-Green list.

The last time Labor won an election was in 1998. In 2010 and 2012, it fell just one and three seats short, respectively, of Rutte.

Dilan Yeşilgöz, the outgoing justice minister, has been nominated by the VVD to succeed him. If she wins, she could become the Netherlands’ first woman and first foreign-born prime minister.

The BBB does not yet have a prime ministerial candidate. It won the provincial elections in March, drawing voters who oppose cuts in livestock farming to reduce ammonia pollution away from the Christian Democrats and smaller right-wing parties. Leader Caroline van der Plas has said she isn’t fit for the role.

Centrist parties in disarray

The Christian Democrats have yet to find a new leader. Neither Wopke Hoekstra, the outgoing foreign minister, nor Hugo de Jonge, the outgoing minister of housing, is interested. Their party dominated Dutch politics between the end of the Second World War and 2010, when Rutte came to power. It now polls at a measly 3 to 5 percent.

Climate minister Rob Jetten would take over D66, which has governed with Rutte and the Christian Democrats since 2017. Sigrid Kaag, the current party leader and outgoing finance minister, is stepping down after she and her family received numerous death threats. Polls suggest D66 would lose two-thirds of its voters, many to a Labor-Green list.

Labor-Green could also draw voters away from the animal rights party and the far-left Socialists.

Dilemma for the VVD

The polls will almost certainly change. Only a third of Dutch voters are loyal to a party. 10 to 20 percent don’t make up their minds until the final days before the election.

The current numbers provide no realistic majority without the VVD. Even a coalition of all center-left parties, including D66, plus the Christian Democrats would fall short.

The BBB is unlikely to join a left-wing coalition. Those parties are far apart on everything from asylum and agricultural reform to climate policy and energy.

VVD and BBB share plans for asylum reform. Conservatives in the VVD would also see a coalition with the BBB as an opportunity to delay farm cuts as well as the Netherlands’ transition to clean energy. But it would need the support of Wilders’ Freedom Party, and many in the VVD still blame him for blowing up the Netherlands’ most right-wing government ever in 2012 over spending cuts.

A “purple” coalition with Labor-Green and D66 would keep farm and energy reforms on track, but it could force the VVD to shelve its plans for a more restrictive asylum policy. It would also require smaller, probably left-wing parties for a majority, which is a risk. The VVD lose right-wing voters to the BBB and Wilders.

Alberto Núñez Feijóo’s chances of becoming Spain’s prime minister appear slim.

His conservative People’s Party won the election on Sunday with 136 of the 350 seats in Congress. But a coalition with the far-right Vox (Voice) and center-right Navarrese People’s Union would be stuck at 170 seats, six short of a majority.

The Canarian Coalition, which governs the Spanish islands in the Atlantic with Feijóo’s PP, and the moderate Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) have six seats between them. But both refuse to support a prime minister who also needs Vox.

Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’ chances are only slightly better. He would need the support of almost all remaining parties, including Basque and Catalan separatists, to stay in power.

If neither man can muster a majority, Spain would have to hold a repeat election, probably in December or the new year.

“Patriots” and separatists don’t go together

The PNV and Vox cancel each other out. The far-right party, which would outlaw separatism and abolish the autonomies of the Basque Country and Catalonia, insists it will not support a prime minister who is also backed by the PNV.

“You can’t have a patriotic vote alongside that of a separatist party,” said Vox secretary Ignacio Garriga on Monday.

The PNV govern the Basque Country with parliamentary support from Sánchez’ Socialist Party. Their long-term goal is independence, but they have no immediate plans to achieve it. Their rival, the more hardline, and left-wing, Basque Country Gather (EH Bildu), for the first time won more seats in Congress than the PNV on Sunday. Voting together with Vox to make Feijóo prime minister has only downsides for the PNV. The Basque Socialists might withdraw their support from their regional government and Bildu could win even more seats in the next general election.

The Canarian Coalition sees no upsides either. Feijóo does “not have any possibility to become prime minister,” according to the group’s outgoing member of Congress, Ana Oramas.

Sánchez needs everyone else

A grand coalition of the PP and Socialists — never tried before — is also off the table, according to Sánchez’ deputy prime minister, María Jesús Montero.

That leaves a left-wing coalition of the Socialists, far-left Sumar (Unite), Bildu and the PNV, Catalonia’s Republican Left and the one-seat Galician Nationalist Bloc (BNG).

Four years ago, the parties that are now Sumar, the PNV and BNG backed Sánchez. Bildu and the Republican Left abstained. Junts (Together), the more hardline Catalan separatist party, voted against Sánchez, as did the Canarian Coalition.

To win this time, Sánchez would need Bildu and the Republicans to vote for him and Junts, which has seven seats, to abstain. (If Sánchez can’t get a majority of 176 on the first ballot, he would need only more votes in his favor than against on a second attempt.)

On election night, Junts‘s parliamentary group leader, Míriam Nogueras, cautioned they would “not make Pedro Sánchez prime minister in exchange for nothing.”

Catalan demands

Junts has two demands:

1. A referendum on Catalan independence recognized by Spain.
2. An amnesty for the organizers of the 2017 referendum, which was unsanctioned.

Both are acceptable to Sumar, but not the Socialists. They share the Constitutional Court’s opinion that independence referendums are illegal.

Sánchez pardoned the nine organizers of the 2017 referendum, including seven Catalan ministers, who were imprisoned in Spain. Those who fled, including former regional president Carles Puigdemont, remain wanted by Spanish police.

Not coincidentally, the day after the general election Spain’s public prosector asked the Supreme Court to reissue an arrest warrant for Puigdemont, who lives in Belgium and represents Catalonia in the European Parliament. The Prosecutor’s Office and courts have taken a hard line against Catalan separatism.

An election that centered on Spanish identity has handed power to parties from the two regions that most clearly define themselves against it: the Basque Country and Catalonia.

Neither Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’ left-wing bloc of the Socialist Party and Sumar (Unite), nor a combination of Alberto Núñez Feijóo’s conservative People’s Party and the far-right Vox (Voice), will have a majority in the next Congress, which convenes in August. Basque and Catalan nationalists won enough seats on Sunday to decide who becomes the next prime minister.

Sánchez holds the best cards despite placing second. He governed with the support of Basque and Catalan parties before. But they may ask for more this time than he is willing to give.

The odds are against Feijóo. He grew his party from 89 to 136 seats, and claimed victory on Sunday night, but he would need both the anti-regionalist Vox and one of the four regional parties from the Basque Country and Catalonia for a majority. That is an improbable combination. His best hope is that Sánchez will fail too and the country must hold a repeat election next year.

Culture war overshadows economy

Spain’s economy is projected to grow 2 percent this year and next, faster than the EU average. Unemployment is at its lowest since 2008. Inflation is projected to fall from 8 to 3 percent. Spaniards pay almost the lowest energy bills in Europe under a government price cap. Renewables provide 50 percent of Spain’s electricity.

Sánchez lowered income tax for most, reduced sales tax on food and fuel, raised taxes on banks and millionaires, increased the minimum wage, capped rent hikes at 3 percent per year, cut severance pay and gave contractors the same collective bargaining rights as employees.

The People’s Party (PP), spooked by the far right and realizing that Sánchez’ economic policies were more popular than its own, fought the campaign on culture-war issues. Sánchez also allowed 16 year-olds to change their gender and legalized euthanasia — with the help of Basque and Catalan nationalists. Feijóo has vowed to reverse those liberalizations.

More than any particular policy, Sánchez’ dependence on parties that want to take the Basque Country and Catalonia out of Spain infuriated nationalists in the rest of the country. EH Bildu, the left-wing Basque separatist party, didn’t help by nominating candidates who were members of the disbanded terrorist group ETA.

By leaving the door open to governing with a party that would abolish marriage equality and recriminalize abortion, Feijóo may have also scared away gay and female voters.

Sánchez’ gamble pays off

Sánchez bet he could make the election a choice between himself and the far right, and he was right.

After the PP and Vox triumphed in local elections in May, Sánchez brought the national election forward from December, ensuring they would coincide with the formation of right-wing governments in various regions and towns. The PP’s insistence that it would protect gay and women’s rights sounded less convincing when it turned out their local coalition agreements with Vox didn’t mention either. Vox played into Sánchez’ hands by banning rainbow flags and mocking feminists.

Separatists lose, but become kingmakers

Sánchez has devolved no additional powers to either the Basque Country or Catalonia. Junts (Together), Catalonia’s separatist opposition party, has criticized its more pragmatic rival, the Republican Left, for backing Sánchez despite his few concessions.

The Socialist pardoned the organizers of an unsanctioned independence referendum in 2017 and abolishing the antiquated crime of sedition for which they were convicted. He broke his promise to fund more Catalan-language media and rationalize overlapping powers between the governments in Barcelona and Madrid over health care, infrastructure and labor law.

The threat of a government with the far right was enough to turn many Republican voters around. Half switched to the Socialists, who posted their best result in Catalonia since 2008. Junts lost one seat.

It could come down to one vote

By criticizing Sánchez’ pacts, and aligning himself with a party that would outlaw separatism and abolish Basque and Catalan home rule, Feijóo has probably made it impossible for hims to govern.

The combination of PP, Vox and the Navarrese People’s Union (a PP ally) has 170 seats in the new Congress, six short of a majority. The Canarian Coalition, which governs the Atlantic islands with the PP, would add one more seat. Feijóo needs the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) to reach 176. But its leader in Congress, Aitor Esteban, has ruled supporting Feijóo if it means bringing the far right into government.

The math isn’t a lot easier for Sánchez. The left-wing EH Bildu, Galician Nationalist Bloc, Republican Left and Sumar would give him 167 seats. Even if the centrist PNV is willing to vote for him (they did last time), Sánchez would be four seats short. That means he can’t ignore Junts.

They have conditioned their support on an independence referendum Sánchez is unlikely to sanction. More realistic would be a pardon for their party leader, Carles Puigdemont, the former Catalan president who fled to Belgium after the 2017 referendum to avoid arrest.

If outright support is too much to ask, Junts could abstain to give Sánchez a fighting chance. If he doesn’t win an absolute majority of 176 votes on the first ballot, he could call a second vote where a simple majority would suffice. If the Canarian Coalition votes with the right, and Junts doesn’t vote at all, Sánchez should have 172 votes in his favor and 171 against.

After the last election, in 2019, the margin was almost just as tight. The Canarian Coalition and Junts voted against Sánchez while EH Bildu and the Republican Left abstained. The result was 167 votes for Sánchez and 165 against.

• Neither the left- nor right-wing bloc won a majority in Spain’s Congress of Deputies on Sunday. Regional parties will hold the balance of power.
• Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez of the Socialist Workers’ Party was reduced to second place despite gaining seats. Alberto Núñez Feijóo propelled the conservative People’s Party into first place with 33 percent support, but he doesn’t have a majority even with Santiago Abascal’s far-right Vox (Voice) and the center-right Navarrese People’s Union.
• For Sánchez to stay in power, he would need the support of Yolanda Díaz’ far-left Sumar (Unite) and almost all regional parties, including the separatist Together for Catalonia.

Congress of Deputies results

Senate results

The outcome of Sunday’s election in Spain could usher in a new period of confrontation with the independence movement in Catalonia.

If, as the polls predict, the conservative People’s Party and far-right Vox (Voice) win a majority, the next government would be far more hostile to Catalan interests than Pedro Sánchez’, a coalition of the Socialists and far left.

The last major protests were in 2019, when nine of Catalonia’s leading separatists, including the region’s former vice president, were convicted of sedition for organizing a referendum on independence. Hundreds of thousands took to the streets of Barcelona and smaller Catalan cities. At night, trashcans were burned and there were altercations with police.

Separatists gave Sánchez a chance

Independence has lost support since. 40 percent of Catalans want to break away, down from 50 percent a decade ago.

Some gave up hope when the referendum, which was boycotted by unionists, failed to bring about a Catalan republic. Session was blocked by the Spanish government. Others have been willing to give Sánchez a chance.

The Socialist Party leader became prime minister in 2018 with the support of Catalonia’s leading separatist party, the Republican Left. He pardoned the nine separatists and convened joint Catalan-Spanish cabinet meetings, something his conservative predecessor expressly refused to do.

But the talks have yielded few concrete results. Whatever momentum there was for a negotiated solution, one that would devolve more powers to Catalonia without splitting the region from Spain, was lost during the COVID-19 pandemic. Right-wing parties have no intention of bringing it back.

Many Spaniards are insulted

Sánchez may have done the bare minimum from a Catalan nationalist point of view; for other Spaniards, he has gone too far. Half of Catalans want more self-government. In the rest of Spain, half of voters believe the region has too much autonomy already.

Adding insult to injury, Sánchez is only in power because the Republican Left put him there. His own Socialist Workers’ Party does not have a majority. It governs with the support of far-left and regional parties.

Conservatives tap into this wounded pride by claiming Sánchez has sold out Spain to the separatists.

Conservatives would curtail self-government

Sánchez abolished one of the crimes for which the nine separatists were convicted in 2019: sedition. Amnesty International and the Council of Europe had urged Spain for years to strike sedition from the law books, because it can be abused to criminalize dissent. Most other EU countries have. The People’s Party and Vox would bring it back.

The People’s Party would ban “unauthorized referendums” that are “aimed at undermining Spain.” Vox would hold a referendum on outlawing separatist parties instead. It would depose regional governments that undermine the “unity of Spain.” Separatists have governed Catalonia since 2012.

The Socialist Party’s manifesto doesn’t mention Catalonia. It does support protecting co-official languages, like Catalan, and calls for more cooperation within a “diverse Spain” — without specifying what cooperation means.

Sumar (Unite), which includes Sánchez’ current coalition partner Podemos (We Can), is the only national party with a plan to give Catalonia more power. It would allow regional languages, like Catalan, to be spoken in the public sector throughout Spain and negotiate a “new agreement” that “recognizes and values Spain’s diversity.” It specifically mentions tax as an area to look into.

Catalans have long asked for the same fiscal autonomy as the Basques, who collect their own taxes, keep what they needs and send the rest to Madrid. In Catalonia, the national government collects most taxes.

Sumar would put a revised autonomy statute to a vote in Catalonia. But it had only 11 to 14 percent support when a ban on opinion polling went into effect five days before the election.

Catalans have their own terms

Catalonia’s Republican Left has conditioned its support for another Socialists-led government on:

• Transfer of the regional railway to Catalan authorities.
• An end to the “fiscal deficit”.
• Progress in the “dialogue” between Catalan and Spanish ministers.

The wealthiest region of Spain after Madrid, Catalonia pays more in taxes than it gets back. But even that share isn’t fully spent. In 2021, Catalonia received 35 percent of the money the central government had budgeted. Especially in rail, Spanish investment has been slow.

Junts (Together), the Republican Left’s more hardline rival, would not support a prime minister who doesn’t give Catalans a chance to vote on independence, something both Sánchez and People Party’s leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo have ruled out.

The far-left Popular Unity Candidacy (CUP), the third and smallest independence party, conditions its support for a national government on recognition of Catalan “self-determination”.

Spain has done well under Pedro Sánchez. The economy is projected to grow 2 percent this year and next, faster than the EU average. Unemployment is at its lowest since 2008. Inflation is down from 8 to under 3 percent. Spaniards pay almost the lowest energy bills in Europe. Renewables provide 50 percent of Spain’s electricity.

Sánchez, a social democrat who governs with the far left, has protected Spaniards from the worst effects of the pandemic and the war in Ukraine by temporarily reducing sales tax on food and fuel and by paying the wages of workers who lost their jobs. He has invested 40 percent of Spain’s EU COVID-19 recovery funds into green projects.

He has also made structural reforms, like raising the minimum wage and reducing severance pay. He cut taxes for small businesses and incomes under €300,000, and paid for it by raising taxes on capital gains and incomes over €3 million.

The left-wing coalition government — the first since the Civil War — banned “gay conversion therapy”, legalized euthanasia for the terminally ill and required slaughterhouses to install cameras.

The alternative is far worse

Sánchez is not a liberal. He also capped rent increases, made it almost impossible to evict non-paying renters, gave contractors the same collective bargaining rights as employees and reined in the use of temporary work contracts. Some 20,000 freelancers have quit. Half the job growth since Sánchez came to power has been in the public sector.

But the alternative is worse. Alberto Núñez Feijóo, the leader of Spain’s conservative People’s Party (PP), would put a tax on solar panels, lower taxes for corporations but not startups, most likely weaken euthanasia rights and ban gender changes under the age of 18 without a parent’s approval.

If Feijóo forms a government with the far-right Vox (Voice), Spain would be taken back in time. Vox doesn’t believe human activity is causing global warming. It would abolish gay marriage, recriminalize abortion and repeal animal-rights and environmental regulations in the food industry. The party’s priority is defunding the self-governments of the Basque Country and Catalonia. It would ban independence referendums, but hold a national referendum on banning separatist parties.

The result could only be an uprising in Catalonia. Vox leader Santiago Abascal would respond to unrest with a “sustained, lasting intervention” to “convince” the people of Catalonia that independence is hopeless. That sounds like an occupation.

Feijóo maintains his preference is for a minority government. Even if that’s true, many in his party would welcome a deal with Vox. It would give them the chance to pull public funding from the exhumation of mass graves from the Civil War and dictatorship. The conservatives demanded the resignation of Spain’s public television chief after one of her interviewers asked Feijóo tough questions. The PP and Vox already govern three Spanish regions and 140 cities and towns.

Vote for regional parties is risky

In the last election, the Atlantic Sentinel advised voters to give regional parties the balance of power in Congress. At the time, polls had Sánchez comfortably in first place and we hoped a strong regional bloc would force him to devolve more powers to Catalonia.

He has done the bare minimum: pardoning the former Catalan ministers who were imprisoned for organizing an independence referendum in 2017 and abolishing one of the crimes for which they were convicted. (The PP and Vox would bring back “sedition”.)

But Sánchez reneged on a promise to fund more Catalan-language film and TV, and he blocked a congressional inquiry into the revelation that 65 Catalans, including the regional president, had their phones tapped by Spain’s national security agency.

He made no proposals to give Catalonia fiscal autonomy, like the Basque Country, or sort out overlapping powers between the national and regional governments, for example in housing.

A vote for regional parties is riskier this time. The PP has always opposed home rule in Spain’s regions. Vox would abolish it. Both oppose the use of regional languages in the civil service and schools.

The only national party with the right idea is Sumar (Unite), which includes Sánchez’ current coalition partner, Podemos (We Can), and the Communists: negotiate more autonomy and let Catalans decide in a referendum whether to accept it. But the rest of their program is too left-wing for our tastes. The best hope is a continuation of the outgoing government, and the best chance for that is by voting for Sánchez.

Spaniards elect a new Congress and Senate on Sunday. Alberto Núñez Feijóo, the leader of the conservative People’s Party, hopes to unseat Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, a Socialist, but surveys give neither man a majority. The relative strength of the far left and far right, which have been polling at a combined 25 to 30 percent percent, could decide who forms the next government.

This election guide explains everything you need to know: the Spanish electoral system, the parties, the issues and which coalitions may be possible.

Voting

Polls open at 9 in the morning and close at 8 in the evening. The paper ballots are counted on election night.

Usually the results for Congress are known within a few hours, but a higher share of postal voters could delay the results this year. Many Spaniards are on holiday. A record 2.5 million, 7 percent of the voting population, have requested postal ballots, up from 1 million last time.

The electoral system

348 members of Spain’s lower chamber, the Congress of Deputies, are elected by proportional representation in Spain’s fifty provinces. Seats are allocated according to the population of each province. There is an electoral threshold of 3 percent. The autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla on the North African coast get one seat each.

208 members of the Senate are elected at the provincial level. Each province of mainland Spain gets four senators. The larger Balearics and Canary Islands each get three, the smaller islands one. Ceuta and Melilla have two senators each. The remaining 56 senators are appointed by the seventeen regional governments. As a result, lightly populated provinces have relatively more power in the upper chamber. The parties that control the regional governments also have an advantage. In the Basque Country and Catalonia, that’s the separatists.

The congressional elections use closed-party lists: Spaniards vote for a party, not a candidate. (That is why counting the congressional votes only takes a few hours.) Senate elections use open-party lists, so a candidate who is placed lower can still get elected if he or she wins a lot of personal votes. (Tallying those results takes longer.) Both chambers get a four-year mandate.

The Senate can only veto, not initiate, legislation, and its veto can be overturned by an absolute majority in Congress. The Senate does have a special role in enforcing, or potentially changing, the distribution of powers between the national government and the regions. When the People’s Party suspended home rule in Catalonia in 2017, after the region had organized an independence referendum in defiance of Spain’s Constitutional Court, it needed to ask the Senate, not Congress, for permission.

Parties

Until 2015, Spanish democracy was almost a two-party system with the Socialists on the left and the People’s Party (PP) on the right alternating in power.

That year, two new parties — the liberal-nationalist Citizens and the far-left Podemos (We Can) — broke through, winning a third of the seats between them. Negotiations for a grand coalition between the Socialists and People’s Party failed, and voters returned to the polls in 2016.

The PP won and formed a minority government with the Socialists’ acquiescence. Sánchez reversed his party’s position in 2017, when he ousted the PP with the support of Socialist, Podemos and Basque and Catalan deputies.

Most Citizens voters have returned to the PP. The liberals are not projected to win seats in this election at all. They have been overtaken by another party on the right: Vox (Voice), which is anti-immigrant, socially conservative and vehemently opposed to Basque and Catalan nationalism. Podemos has merged into a united far-left party, Sumar (Unite).

Spanish law forbids polling five days before the election. When the ban went into effect, the People’s Party was in first place with 32 to 36 percent support. The Socialists had 28 percent, and Sumar and Vox 12 to 14 percent each. The three pro-independence parties in Catalonia would win half the votes in the region, or 5 percent of the votes nationally.

Issues

• Agriculture and animal welfare: The Socialists legally declared animals “sentient beings” and required cameras in all slaughterhouses. They would raise penalties for abandoning, abusing or euthanizing otherwise healthy animals. Vox has vowed to “protect” the Spanish food industry from animal-rights and environmental legislation.
• Autonomy: Vox would defund the self-governments of the Basque Country and Catalonia. Sumar would negotiate devolution with Catalonia and put the outcome to a referendum. It also wants to recognize regional languages like Basque and Catalan in the public sector throughout Spain.
• Business: Sánchez cut taxes for small businesses and startups, and raised taxes on large companies and capital gains of at least €200,000. The PP would lower taxes for banks and energy companies.
• Climate and energy: Sánchez funneled 40 percent of Spain’s €70 billion in EU COVID-19 recovery funds into climate-related spending, including money for clean energy, energy efficiency and green mobility. The PP would put a tax on solar panels. Sumar would freeze public investments in fossil fuels and ban domestic flights under three hours where a high-speed train is available. Vox doesn’t believe human activity causes global warming.
• Health: The Socialists banned “gay conversion therapy,” legalized euthanasia and required all public hospitals to offer abortions. The PP and Vox would ban gender changes under the age of 18 without a parent’s approval and repeal a new law on sexual assault that expanded the definition of rape but also lowered prison sentences for nonviolent assaults. It’s unclear if the PP would recriminalize assisted suicide, but they voted against its legalization. Vox would recriminalize both euthanasia and abortion.
• Housing: The Socialists capped rent increases, banned evictions if it would cause renters to become homeless and expanded the share of public housing in new developments. The PP would speed up evictions of squatters. Sumar would build more public housing.
• Income: The Socialists cut taxes on incomes under €300,000 and raised taxes on incomes over €3 million. The PP would further cut taxes on incomes under €40,000 and abolish the wealth tax. Vox would lower all income taxes. Sumar would give €20,000 to Spaniards when they reach the age of 18.
• Justice: The Socialists overturned the “gag law” of the previous conservative government that banned demonstrations outside parliament and taking photos of police. The PP and Vox would bring back sedition as a crime. Sánchez abolished it after nine Catalans, including seven former regional ministers, were convicted of sedition for organizing the 2017 independence referendum. The PP and Vox would also withdraw public funding from the exhumation of mass graves from the Franco era.
• Labor: The Socialists raised the minimum wage, reduced severance pay and gave contractors the same collective bargaining rights as employees. They also reined in temporary work contracts. The PP would liberalize labor laws. Sumar would shorten the workweek to 37.5 hours.

Possible coalitions

Feijóo has said he would first seek the acquiescence of the Socialists to form a minority government. That may be an option if Sánchez resigns or is forced out as leader. The centrist wing of his party never warmed to his alliance with Basque and Catalan separatists and the far left.

The PP’s alternative is a coalition with Vox. The two right-wing parties govern various regions and towns. The PP has ruled out deals with Basque and Catalan separatists.

If the PP and Vox fall short of a majority, Sánchez may be able to renew his coalition with the far left if the Basque parties and Catalonia’s Republican Left give him another chance.

Junts, the Republican Left’s rival, has ruled out supporting either a People’s Party or a Sánchez-led government.

Spanish conservatives still hope they can neutralize the far right by cooperating with it.

Esteban González Pons, the group leader of Spain’s People’s Party in the European Parliament, told The New York Times that bringing Vox (Voice) into the government might “normalize” it:

Vox will be another party, a conservative party inside of the system.

Polls predict the People’s Party (PP) will win the election this month with 31 to 37 percent support. It would need Vox’s 12 to 15 percent for a majority.

To his credit, Pons acknowledged there is a risk: “We can legitimize Vox.” Arguably, it already has by not ruling out a coalition.

Vox has never moderated its views

Pons’ is the triumph of hope over experience. Previous attempts to meet Vox halfway didn’t convince the far-right party to moderate its views.

When the PP suspended Catalonia’s self-government after the region held an independence referendum in 2017, Vox proposed to withdraw it permanently.

When the PP suggested Brexit might be an opportunity to share control of Gibraltar with the British, Vox simply demanded the peninsula back.

When the PP argued Spain could not absorb an infinite number of immigrants, Vox proposed to “reconquer” Spain from Muslims.

The PP would reverse a law allowing girls to get an abortion from the age of 16 without a parents’ approval. Vox would recriminalize abortion altogether.

It would also revoke animal-rights and environmental legislation passed by the outgoing left-wing Congress.

Pons said Vox’s views on gay rights and violence against women “are red lines for us.” The party would repeal marriage equality and restrict same-sex couples to civil unions. It would also revoke stiffer sentences for men who beat or kill their wives.

PP has been pulled to the right

Far from drawing Vox to the center, the PP has been pulled to the right.

It always fought Catalan autonomy. Now it would suspend self-government in the region if the separatists keep winning elections there.

It always opposed teaching in Catalan, but in recent years it has taken legal action against what it calls a policy of “linguistic apartheid” against children from Spanish-speaking families. With success: the Supreme Court ruled Catalan education must be at least 25 percent in Spanish (Castilian).

In order to form a government with Vox in Valencia, the region south of Catalonia, the PP agreed to avoid all mention of gender-based violence and gay rights. In the municipalities of Náquera and Torrijos, the two right-wing parties banned rainbow flags.

The most popular figure in the PP is not the insipid national party leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, but the rowdy governor of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso. She refused to close businesses, schools and theaters to prevent the spread of coronavirus in the name of “freedom” and calls critical media “fake news”.

The Trumpist rhetoric is not a coincidence. Like the PP, Republicans in the United States for years appeased their right wing, thinking they could control it. Now it controls them.

The European Parliament narrowly approved a new nature-restoration law on Wednesday. 336 lawmakers, mostly from the center-left, supported a European Commission proposal to restore 20 percent of Europe’s degraded ecosystems by 2030 and all areas deemed in need of restoration by 2050. 300 lawmakers from the conservative European People’s Party (EPP) and Euroskeptic right voted against it.

But to make the proposal palatable to the centrist Renew group, the obligations for member states were watered down and farm land was excluded from the restoration goals.

Liberals from Finland, Germany and the Netherlands still voted against the bill, fearing a repetition of the situation in the Netherlands, where a strict interpretation of existing EU conservation law has slowed construction and thrown thousands of livestock farmers into uncertainty.

In a lesser-noticed vote, the center-right also excluded most livestock farmers from stricter EU targets for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

Obligation stripped from final version

Parliament stripped an obligation for EU member states to ensure protected ecosystems don’t deteriorate. The version of the law that passed merely requires governments to demonstrate efforts to prevent deterioration.

According to the European Environment Agency, only 15 percent of habitats protected under EU law are in good condition. Peat- and wetlands and dunes are in the worst condition due to pollution from agriculture and industry. One in three European bee and butterfly species are in decline. One in ten are on the verge of extinction. 71 percent of fish and 60 percent of amphibians have suffered a decline in the past decade despite EU fishing quotas.

Judges in the Netherlands have put a near-freeze on agricultural, building and industrial activity in proximity to conservation areas that are in poor condition. That has also slowed the country’s transition to clean energy, since new electric grids and solar parks can’t get built. The government’s solution is reduce livestock, the primary source of ammonia emissions which are lethal to certain plant- and wildlife, but that has stirred opposition from farmers. A new political party, the Farmer-Citizen Movement, has surpassed the Christian Democrats, the Dutch branch of the EPP, in the polls.

Less river and farmland restoration

Parliament also cut the goal for restoration of river ecosystems from 25,000 to 20,000 kilometers by 2030.

And it took out binding objectives for the restoration of agricultural ecosystems, including a 10 percent share for farm areas with high-diversity landscape features EU-wide.

Conservative groups succeeded in inserting an amendment that would put nature-restoration goals on hold if food prices rose more than 10 percent in a year or EU food production fell more than 5 percent.

Since parliament’s version now differs from the law adopted by the European Council of agricultural ministers, the EU institutions need to hash out a compromise.

Most farms excluded from emissions goal

The same right-wing majority blocked a European Commission proposal to broaden the scope of the Industrial Emissions Directive to include more commercial farms.

Currently 20,000 of the largest pig and poultry farms in the EU are affected by the directive in addition to 30,000 industrial plants. They must reduce harmful emissions using best available technologies.

The Commission wanted to lower the threshold to farms with 500 pigs or 10,000 laying hens, and include farms with 150 dairy cows. That would have brought some 185,000 European livestock farms into regulation, which together cause 60 percent of ammonia and 43 percent of agricultural methane emissions.

Farmers’ groups objected, arguing the changes would have “severely hit the European model of family farming with additional costs and bottlenecks.”

Mark Rutte stunned the Dutch parliament on Monday, when he told lawmakers he would not seek his center-right party’s nomination for a fifth term as prime minister.

Rutte had already submitted his resignation to King Willem-Alexander after the four parties in his government failed to do a deal on asylum reform, but he left the door open in a news conference on Friday to running again.

In power for thirteen years, Rutte is Europe’s longest-serving elected leader after Viktor Orbán. His surprise exit, combined with the meteoric rise of a new farmers’ party and the likely merger of the Labor Party and Greens, could redraw the Dutch political landscape, which has been dominated by Rutte’s People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) for thirteen years.

Rutte stays on as caretaker until a successor can be sworn in, which could be a year from now. Elections aren’t due until November. Forming a coalition government in the Netherlands usually requires months of negotiation. Reforms in agriculture, housing and labor law may be put on hold in the meantime.

Parties must find new leaders

Rutte remained popular with VVD voters (of which I am one). 71 percent thought he could stay. But he had exhausted the goodwill of other voters: 72 percent wanted him to go.

Top contenders to succeed Rutte as VVD party leader are parliamentary group leader Sophie Hermans and the outgoing justice minister, Dilan Yeşilgöz-Zegerius. Hermans’ predecessor Klaas Dijkhoff is popular but not interested in the job. The party’s leader in the Senate, former health minister Edith Schippers, has also taken herself out of contention.

The ruling Christian Democrats also need a new leader. Foreign Minister Wopke Hoekstra has said he will not run again. When he spearheaded the party in 2021, its support fell from 12 to 9 percent. It now polls at 4 to 6 percent. Many Christian Democrat voters have switched to the Farmer-Citizen Movement, which opposes cuts in farming to reduce emissions.

Finance Minister Sigrid Kaag has yet to make her intentions known. A former UN diplomat, she pushed her left-liberal D66 up from 12 to 15 percent support in the last election. She skillfully negotiated many concessions from the VVD and Christian Democrats in subsequent coalition talks, but she has also been the target of death threats. Her daughters do not want her to run again.

The opposition Labor Party and Greens have proposed to contest the election with a joint list of candidates. If members approve of the merger, Frans Timmermans would be an ideal candidate to head a united left. The Labor Party politician is the most powerful EU commissioner after President Ursula von der Leyen, having been charged with the European Green Deal. But he still has a full year left in Brussels until the European elections of 2024.

What will happen to policy

Parliament decides after the summer which policies will be frozen until there is a new government. Major reforms in agriculture, climate policy, housing and labor may be delayed. Immigration reform will almost certainly be put off and could become the number-one issue in the election.

Agriculture

Caps on ammonia pollution, which could have forced one in three Dutch livestock farmers to quit, will probably not be enforced by this government. But its premature demise also means there won’t be a long-term plan for agricultural reform. Stricter EU regulations for manure management and water quality will come into force in 2026 and 2027, respectively. The Netherlands is currently not in compliance, largely due to its outsized dairy and meat industry.

Voluntary buyouts of farms will continue, but a €24 billion fund to finance such buyouts in the long term and subsidize innovations in ammonia capture and more sustainable farming has yet to be voted through in the Senate. Even if it is approved there — the Christian Democrats may feel they are no longer bound by the coalition agreement — the lower house could put its implementation on hold.

Climate and energy

In April, the coalition parties agreed additional policies to achieve a 55-percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, including:

• Abolishing the exemption from coal tax for industrial users.
• Lowering gas tax for households and small businesses.
• Increasing CO₂ tax.
• Expanding solar parks at sea.
• Requiring new solar parks to install batteries for energy storage.
• Repurposing old gas plants for the generation of green hydrogen.
• Subsidizing home insulation and secondhand electric cars.
• Raising the share of biofuels blended into diesel and petrol.
• Requiring the use of biomaterials in construction.
• Requiring the use of 25 percent recycled plastics in new products.

Those reforms could be put on hold as well.

Expansion of the electric grid, which must cope with a rising and intermittent supply of green energy, will almost certainly be delayed, as it would require new legislation.

Housing

Plans to bring some 270,000 rental apartments into regulation, mandate two-thirds “affordable” housing in new developments and limit legal appeals to construction projects could be shelved.

D66 and VVD are also wary of the government’s proposal to allow municipalities to set aside one in two homes for existing residents.

The Christian Democrats and VVD reluctantly agreed to ban short-term rental contracts, a joint initiative of the Christian Union — the fourth and smallest party in the government — and opposition Labor Party. It has yet to reach the Senate.

Higher real-estate taxes and a cap on rent increases (1 percent above the average salary increase) will continue.

Labor

The government unveiled labor reforms in April that are meant to encourage more permanent employment:

• Banning on-call and zero-hours contracts.
• Giving workers hired through an employment agency the same salary, holiday and pension rights as employees.
• Limiting freelancers and temp workers to three contracts per employer.
• Requiring freelancers to buy unemployment insurance.

The liberal parties agreed halfheartedly, but the reforms have strong backing from the Labor Party and Greens, who may seize the opportunity to push them through before a pro-regulation majority is lost.

Immigration

The ruling parties tentatively agreed to reintroduce a dual asylum system with five-year residence permits, and a pathway to citizenship, for internationally-recognized refugees (fleeing persecution for their political beliefs or identity) and three-year permits for asylum seekers qualifying for so-called subsidiary protection under EU law (mostly war refugees). Other EU countries make the same distinction. The Netherlands merged its asylum procedures in the early 2000s.

The Christian Union drew the line at limiting family-reunification rights for refugees given subsidiary protection, a key VVD demand.

The parties also came close to a deal on labor migration, but the details have not yet been published.

In the absence of reforms to reduce asylum applications, junior minister Eric van der Burg insists he needs new powers to overrule local governments that refuse to shelter asylum seekers. But a law to that effect is opposed by his own VVD and more right-wing opposition parties.

What happens next

Elections are due in the middle of November. Parties need to register their candidates six weeks in advance.

Since 1986, the Netherlands’ Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis has analyzed the competing parties’ manifestos for their effects on economic growth, employment and government spending. In 2021, it also made an estimate of their environmental impact.

A two-hour debate between party leaders on public radio kicks off the campaign season three weeks before the polls open.

Votes (paper ballots) are counted on election night. Dutch media are usually able to provide an accurate projection of the results a few hours after polls close.

The Netherlands votes by proportional representation. There is no electoral threshold. In the last election, seventeen parties won representation in the 150-seat lower chamber.

The outgoing parliament has the right to appoint a first mediator to scout out the options for a coalition government. Once it is seated, the new parliament must discuss the election results within one week and appoint an official negotiator. Usually former cabinet ministers or retired party leaders are asked to take this role. Negotiations can drag out for months with various options being explored before one combination of parties reaches an agreement.

Which coalitions are possible

Recent polls make it hard to imagine a majority government without both the VVD and the Farmer-Citizen Movement (BBB). They are projected to win almost one in three seats between them.

Geert Wilders’ nationalist Freedom Party would be needed for a right-wing majority. A left-wing government — without VVD and BBB — would require up to eight parties, ranging from the Christian Democrats in the center to the Socialists on the far left.

VVD and BBB have been able to form centrist coalitions with the Labor Party or Greens or both in five of the Netherlands’ twelve provinces. But the VVD’s demands on asylum reform and the BBB’s disinterest in environmental regulation would make it difficult to form something of a grand coalition nationally.

The polls will almost certainly change depending of whom the parties nominate for the prime ministership. Only a third of Dutch voters are loyal to a party. 10 to 20 percent don’t make up their minds until the final days before the election.