This article was written by journalist Jurgen Tiekstra. He is political editor at Binnenlands Bestuur and interviews for The New World. He also wrote the book: The climate debate as a laughing mirror.

After the fall of the first and only Schoof cabinet, it was free shooting for the opposition. Because GreenLeft-PvdA leader Frans Timmermans leads the largest opposition party, he was allowed to open the June 4 parliamentary debate, and thus attack. "No solutions have been found, not for the housing shortage, not for the nitrogen crisis, not for security," he berated.

D66 leader Rob Jetten heartily complemented him that day: 'In November 2023, more than 10 million Dutch people went to the polls. All those 10 million people wanted solutions. Solutions to the housing shortage, to migration and to better education. That voter now stands empty-handed.'

Volt leader Laurens Dassen's sigh afterward was the heaviest: "We sat and watched eighteen months of complete stagnation. Nothing really happened. (...) No homes have been added.'

It could never have been

Behold the oversimplification in political campaigning. It can be said to Dassen: during the little year that the Schoof administration was missionary, 80,000 homes will have been built. Because that is around the building pace in recent years. And to Timmermans and Jetten: the housing shortage has been worked on since at least Rutte-III, that is, since 2017. In that cabinet, D66's Kasja Ollongren was in charge of the housing dossier. Getting rid of the housing shortage takes so much time that Mona Keijzer as Housing Minister could never have solved the housing shortage already.

By the way: that Ollongren in Rutte-III, as Minister of the Interior , had to see to it that building took place, was because in 2010 the entire Ministry of Housing and Spatial Planning (VROM) had been disbanded by the then tolerant Rutte-I cabinet (VVD and CDA, with tolerant support from the PVV). It is precisely the Schoof cabinet that has restored this vanished department to its former glory, more than fourteen years later.

Continuous line

That many social dossiers indeed do not tolerate delay, VVD leader Yesilgoz seemed to acknowledge during the aforementioned House debate. She tabled a motion, "whereas it is irresponsible to stand still until the next elections," including on housing construction. Her appeal to the Cabinet was to press ahead on key issues. However, the motion was defeated. D66 voted in favor, but GroenLinks-PvdA and Volt, among others, did not.

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