PVV party leader Geert Wilders has rejected an invitation from VVD leader Mark Rutte to return to the negotiating table to talk about forming a right-wing government.
During a parliamentary debate on progress made towards creating a new cabinet after the June 9 general election on Tuesday night, Rutte asked Wilders seven times to join him, the Volkskrant reports.
But Wilders rejected the invitation, repeating his earlier statement that there is no point until the Christian Democrats agree to join in as well.
Democracy
The CDA will not join the VVD and PVV because of the potential threat to democracy, CDA leader Maxime Verhagen told MPs, the Financieele Dagblad reports.
As long as the PVV wants to ban the Koran, introduce a tax on Muslim headscarves, bring in ethnic registration and make combating Islam the central issue in foreign policy then the CDA will not join talks, the paper quoted Verhagen as saying.
Verhagen said he first wanted the PVV and VVD to agree on this sort of social issue before the CDA would join any negotiations on economic reform.
Rebuttal
According to the FD, Wilders was asked by several party leaders during the debate to answer the point about democracy made by Verhagen but he declined to comment.
Wilders refusal to talk means the door has now been firmly closed on a right-wing cabinet, Labour leader Job Cohen said during the debate.
Cohen backs the formation of a 'purple plus' cabinet with the two Liberal parties VVD and D66 and the left-wing greens GroenLinks. The name comes from the combination of party colours.
Rutte told Wilders that if the next cabinet includes Labour, he will be to blame. 'I am giving you the opportunity to negotiate,' he told the PVV leader.
