Netherlands government falls over austerity budget
Baku, April 24 (AZERTAC). With the resignation of Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, the Netherlands joins a growing list of countries whose governments have fallen from power as a result of the sovereign debt crisis and the demands of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and European Union (EU) for ever more savage austerity measures.
In Portugal and Spain, rightist parties benefited from the political difficulties faced by social democratic parties in ramming through cuts amounting to billions of euros. Greece saw the formation of an unelected coalition of the formerly governing social democratic PASOK, the Conservative New Democracy and the neo-fascist LAOS. In Italy, a government of “technocrats” was imposed, directly, as with Greece, at the behest of the EU, the IMF and European Central Bank (ECB).
Governments have also fallen in Slovakia and Slovenia. To this list can be added Ireland, where disaffection with Fianna Fail resulted in the election of a Fine Gael-Labour Party coalition.
Rutte heads the free market liberal People`s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) and led a minority government that included the Christian Democrats (CDA). It was able to rule only with the support of the far-right Freedom Party of Geert Wilders.
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