THE HAGUE: The Dutch dubbed him 'Teflon Mark' because scandals always slid off him like pancakes from a non-stick pan. But Mark Rutte, the Netherlands' longest-serving leader and current second-longest-serving EU leader, has now come unstuck. The 56-year-old leader of the centre-right VVD party s
One slight surprise on that occasion was that he did not arrive on his bike, as he had done for previous meetings with King Willem-Alexander.
Dutch media said he had been playing to hardliners in his own party who wanted a tougher stance on migration.Ironically given the current chaos, Rutte has long traded on an image of stability and caution in the face of southern European debt, populism and the COVID-19 pandemic. The youngest of seven children, his father Izaak was a trader, while his mother Mieke was the sister of Izaak's first wife, who died in a Japanese internment camp in World War II.
Rutte became prime minister in 2010 and immediately showed what critics called a willingness to sacrifice principle for power, entering a coalition supported by the firebrand anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders that later collapsed.But critics said Rutte only managed to do so by pandering to the same anti-immigration rhetoric, with the issue now casting its shadow over his party once again.
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