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Prime Minister Mark Rutte (l) and Finance Minister-designate Sigrid Kaag
Photo: BART MAAT / EPA
The future government of the Netherlands will have more women than ever before.
14 of the 29 ministerial and state secretary posts go to women, according to a list published on Sunday.
Prime Minister Mark Rutte had announced an agreement with three other parties a good two weeks ago after months of coalition negotiations, and the staffing has now been announced.
For the first time, Dilan Yesilgöz-Zegerius, born in Ankara, will become Minister of Justice and Security for a woman of Turkish-Kurdish descent. The 43-year-old, who came to the Netherlands as a child, was nominated by the right-wing liberal People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD), to which the current and future Prime Minister Mark Rutte also belongs.
The new foreign minister will be the Christian Democratic politician Wopke Hoekstra. His previous post as finance minister goes to the former foreign minister Sigrid Kaag from the left-liberal party D66. She resigned after allegations about the chaotic withdrawal of the Dutch troops from Afghanistan in September last year. The previous Minister of the Interior, Kajsa Ollongren (D66), will be the new Defense Minister. The previous Minister of Agriculture, Carola Schouten, from the Christian Union, a party with a strong religious orientation, is taking on the responsibility for combating poverty.
The four parties presented their coalition agreement in mid-December, which includes billions in investments in climate protection, housing and social policy.
This was preceded by the longest coalition negotiations in Dutch history.
The elections took place in March 2021.
The Rutte IV cabinet is due to be sworn in by King Willem-Alexander on January 10th.
kim / dpa / AFP
