1. What is an extra-parliamentary cabinet?
In an extra-parliamentary cabinet, unlike a parliamentary cabinet, there is no coalition agreement to which the coalition parties are bound. The parliamentary factions are not or less involved in the formation. Ministers can come from the coalition parties, but also from other parties or even from outside politics.
2. Are no agreements made?
Instead of a coalition agreement, a government program is established. A government program also states what the new cabinet plans to do. It is less extensive than a coalition agreement. Moreover, the factions of the ruling parties do not have to adhere to it. Until 1963 it was common for the informateur to draw up a government programme. Candidate ministers who agreed to this could join the cabinet. After that, cabinets have always concluded a coalition agreement, with the exception of 1973 when two coalition parties did not want to commit themselves.
3. What is the difference with a business cabinet?
A business cabinet is a specific form of an extra-parliamentary cabinet. In a business cabinet, (almost) all ministers come from outside politics. They are usually professional specialists, such as civil servants and entrepreneurs. By the way, according to parliament.com, until 1948 it was common for foreign ministers to be diplomats and for ministers of war and navy to come from the army.
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4. Is an extra-parliamentary cabinet democratic?
Supporters call an extra-parliamentary cabinet more democratic, because the agreements are not fixed for four years. The cabinet must obtain a majority in the House of Representatives for each proposal. This would increase the duality, the separation between the roles of parliament and cabinet, and thus the democratic content.
“With a looser bond, the House is more able to play its supervisory role and factions can profile themselves more strongly,” said former informant Johan Remkes in the Trouw newspaper. According to opponents, an extra-parliamentary cabinet is less democratic, because the ministers are not directly elected from the coalition parties and are therefore one step further from the voter.
5. Has an extra-parliamentary cabinet ever worked?
Yes, between 1913 and 1918 the extra-parliamentary cabinet of Prime Minister Cort van der Linden managed to guide the country neutrally through the First World War and introduced important constitutional revisions. The ministers of this cabinet were largely non-partisan or independent. The Den Uyl cabinet was partly extra-parliamentary: there was no coalition agreement, but the party factions had committed themselves to government participation.
6. Do we actually know what we are talking about?
That is the question. Opinions vary on how detailed agreements within an extra-parliamentary cabinet should be and who exactly should be allowed to join such a cabinet. Even the New Social Contract, Pieter Omtzigt’s party, which has been calling for an extra-parliamentary cabinet for weeks, seems to keep its definition deliberately vague.
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