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An impasse on budget negotiations led to his government's early collapse in April 2012, but the VVD's victory in thesubsequent election allowed Rutte to return as prime minister to leadhis second cabinet between the VVD and theLabour Party (PvdA), which became the first cabinet to complete a full four-year term since 1998. Though the VVD lost seats in the2017 general election, it remained the largest party. After a record-length formation period, Rutte was appointed to leadhis third cabinet between the VVD,Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA),Democrats 66 (D66) andChristian Union (CU).
Though Rutte and his cabinet resigned in response to theDutch childcare benefits scandal,[3][4][5] the VVD would go on to win the2021 general election.[6] Rutte began his fourth term in 2022 after another record-length formation period. On 7 July 2023, he announced his government's resignation after the cabinet failed to agree on how to handlemigration.[7][8] Rutte IV would continue on as an outgoing cabinet, fulfilling a caretaker function and keeping the nation running until theSchoof cabinet was sworn in on 2 July 2024.[9]
For his ability to remain in office until 2024 despite various political scandals,[10] Rutte had been referred to as "Teflon Mark" as "nothing ever seemed to stick to him".[11] He has also been described by theForeign Policy columnist Caroline de Gruyter as ideologically flexible and pragmatic, willing to accommodate a broad range of political factions in order to address issues,[12] while theGuardian correspondent Jon Henley sees in him a "managerial rather than a visionary leader".[13]
Early life
Rutte was born inThe Hague, in theprovince ofSouth Holland,[14] to aDutch Reformed family. He is the youngest child of Izaäk Rutte (5 October 1909 – 22 April 1988), a merchant, and his second wife Hermina Cornelia Dilling (13 November 1923 – 13 May 2020), a secretary. Izaäk Rutte worked for atrading company; first as an importer in theDutch East Indies; he later ran a car dealership.[15] His second wife was a sister of his first wife, Petronella Hermanna Dilling (17 March 1910 – 20 July 1945), who died while they were interned together inTjideng, a prisoner-of-war camp inBatavia (present-dayJakarta, Indonesia), duringWorld War II.[16] Rutte has seven siblings as a result of his father's two marriages. One of his elder brothers died from AIDS in the 1980s. Rutte later described the deaths of his brother and his father as events that changed the course of his life.[17][18]
Rutte attended the Maerlant Lyceum from 1979 until 1985,[19] specialising in the arts. Although his original ambition was to attend a conservatory and become a concert pianist,[20] he instead went to study history atLeiden University, where he obtained anMA degree in 1992.[21] Rutte combined his studies with a position on the board of theYouth Organisation Freedom and Democracy, the youth organisation of the VVD, and served as chair of the organisation from 1988 to 1991.[22]
After his studies Rutte entered the business world, working as a manager forUnilever and its food subsidiary Calvé. Until 1997, Rutte was part of thehuman resource department of Unilever, and played a leading role in several reorganisations. Between 1997 and 2000, Rutte was staff manager of the subsidiary Van den Bergh Nederland. In 2000, Rutte became a member of the Corporate Human Resources Group, and in 2002, he became human resource manager for IgloMora Groep, another subsidiary of Unilever.[23]
During his time as State Secretary in 2003, Rutte advised municipalities to check Somali residents for social assistance fraud, after a number of Somalis who were working in England were found to be receiving social assistance benefits in the Netherlands as well. A Somali man entitled to benefits was stopped by social investigators and checked for fraud on the basis of his external characteristics, after which he refused the investigators access to his home. The Municipal Executive (College van burgemeester en wethouders) ofHaarlem decided to withdraw his right to social benefits. He disagreed with this and his appeal was upheld by the administrative judge. The court ruled that "an investigation aimed exclusively at persons of Somali descent is discriminatory" and contrary to the Constitution because this distinction is "discrimination based on race". Rutte rejected the criticism, stating that a change in the law would then be necessary to be able to combat targeted fraud.[27][28][29]
Rutte later served as State Secretary for Higher Education and Science within theEducation, Culture and Science Ministry in the Second Balkenende Cabinet from 17 June 2004 to 27 June 2006, replacingAnnette Nijs. In office, Rutte showed particular interest in making theDutch higher education system more competitive internationally, by trying to make it more market oriented (improving the position of students as consumers in the market for education). Rutte resigned from his position in government in June 2006 to return to theHouse of Representatives, and he soon became theparliamentary leader of the VVD.[14]
Party leadership election
After the resignation ofJozias van Aartsen and a loss in the 2006 Dutch municipal election, the VVD held aninternal election for a new Lead Candidate, in which Rutte competed againstRita Verdonk andJelleke Veenendaal. On 31 May 2006, it was announced that Mark Rutte would be the nextlijsttrekker of the VVD. He was elected by 51.5% of party members. Rutte's candidacy was backed by the VVD leadership, including the party board, and many prominent politicians such asFrank de Grave, former minister of Defence,Ivo Opstelten, the mayor ofRotterdam andEd Nijpels, theQueen's Commissioner ofFriesland. TheYouth Organisation Freedom and Democracy, the VVD's youth wing of which Rutte had previously been chair, also backed him. During the elections he promised "to make the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy a party for everyone and not just of the elite".
2006 general election
For the2006 general election, the VVD campaign with Rutte as leader did not get off to a good start; he received criticism from within his own party.[30] Rutte was said to be overshadowed by his own party membersRita Verdonk andGerrit Zalm, as well as being unable to penetrate betweenWouter Bos andJan Peter Balkenende, who were generally seen as the prime candidates to become the next prime minister. On 27 November, it became known that Rita Verdonk, who generally held a more populist view on politics, managed to obtain more votes than Mark Rutte; he obtained 553,200 votes against Verdonk's 620,555.[30][31] After repeated criticisms by Verdonk on VVD policy, Rutte expelled her from the party's parliamentary group on 13 September 2007.[32]
2010 general election
In the2010 general election, Rutte was once again the lead candidate for the VVD. It won 31 seats and, for the first time ever, became the largest party in the House of Representatives.[33] The lengthy2010 cabinet formation followed, with several personalities succeeding each other, being appointed byQueen Beatrix in order to find out what coalition could be formed. Efforts to form a broad spectrum coalition between the VVD, CDA and PvdA failed. Instead, the only possibility appeared to be a centre-right coalition of liberals and theChristian Democratic Appeal (CDA), with the outside support of theParty for Freedom (PVV), led byGeert Wilders.[34]
Prime Minister of the Netherlands
Official portrait, 2010
Premiership of Mark Rutte 14 October 2010 – 2 July 2024
Rutte presenting his first cabinet together with Deputy Prime MinisterMaxime Verhagen (CDA) and coalition partnerGeert Wilders (PVV)
After securing support for a coalition between the VVD and CDA, Rutte was appointed asformateur on 8 October 2010; Rutte announced his prospective cabinet, includingMaxime Verhagen from the CDA as deputy prime minister. On 14 October, Queen Beatrix formally invited Rutte to form a government, and later that day, Rutte presented hisfirst cabinet to Parliament. The government was confirmed in office by a majority of one, and Rutte was sworn in as Prime Minister of the Netherlands, becoming the first Liberal to serve in the role sincePieter Cort van der Linden in 1918.[33] At 43 years old, he also became the second-youngest prime minister in Dutch history, afterRuud Lubbers.[35]
After a victory in the2011 provincial elections, the VVD secured its status as the lead party within the government. In March 2012, seeking to comply with requirements from theEuropean Union to reduce the nation's deficit, Rutte began talks with his coalition partners on a budget which would cut 16 billion euros of government spending. However, PVV leaderGeert Wilders withdrew his party's informal support from the government on 21 April, stating that the proposed budget would hurt economic growth.[36] This led to the early collapse of the government and Rutte submitting his resignation toQueen Beatrix on the afternoon of 23 April.[37] His government had lasted for 558 days, making it one of the shortest Dutch cabinets since World War II.[36]
Second term
Ahead of the2012 general election, Rutte was named the VVD'slead candidate for the third time. At the election in September, the VVD won an additional 10 seats, remaining the largest party in the House of Representatives; the CDA and PVV saw their number of seats fall significantly.[38] The VVD quickly negotiated a coalition agreement with theLabour Party and Rutte returned as prime minister of theSecond Rutte cabinet on 5 November 2012.[39]
Rutte's second cabinet completed its full four-year term without collapsing or losing a vote of no confidence, becoming the first cabinet to do so since theFirst Kok cabinet, which lasted from 1994 to 1998.[43]
Third term
The VVD went into the2017 general election with a small lead over the PVV in most opinion polls. Rutte was judged to have managed the2017 Dutch–Turkish diplomatic incident well according to similar polling. While the VVD lost 8 seats in the general election, the PvdA lost 29, and these seats were split between a number of other parties, leaving the VVD as the largest party in parliament for the third successive election. After holding coalition discussions, Rutte negotiated a grand coalition with theCDA,D66 andCU; he presented histhird cabinet on 26 October 2017 and was sworn in as prime minister for a third term. The 225 days between the general election and the installation of the third Rutte cabinet was the longest such period in Dutch history.[44]
Rutte with Indian prime ministerNarendra Modi, 24 May 2018
The coalition agreement contained a plan to abolish the 15%dividend tax (providing the state €1.4 billion per year), which proved highly unpopular as it had not been mentioned in any of the coalition party's programs, and it later appeared that major Dutch companies likeShell andUnilever had secretly been lobbying for the inclusion of this measure.[45]
Following the2021 Dutch general election, Rutte's VVD party held 34 of 150 seats and was expected to form a new coalition government.[55] After remaining as outgoing prime minister for the duration of the longest formation process in Dutch history he presented a coalition agreement withD66,CDA andCU, the same combination as his previous government, on 15 December 2021.[56]
Rutte suffered apolitical scandal (Nokiagate) during his fourth term, when it was found that he had been deleting the majority of the SMS text messages on his archaicNokia mobile phone for years, personally judging which messages were to be archived and which messages were to be deleted in direct violation of the archival law.[58] He explained that this was necessary due to his phone memory filling up too quickly, which was not considered a plausible excuse by other ministers.[59] The scandal also damaged his campaign promises and the coalition accords, which stated that the cabinet wished to restore peoples faith in politics, create a new governance culture and "improve the information provided to the House". The latter of these concerned measures including a modernisation of the archival law and faster information availability.[59]
In January 2023, the U.S., Japan, and the Netherlands reached an agreement to limit certainadvanced chip exports to China.[60] Accordingly, the Dutch government placed restrictions on chip exports in March 2023 in order to protect national security. This measure affected the Dutch multinationalASML, one of the most important companies in the global microchip supply chain.[61] In January 2024, the Dutch government placed further restrictions on the shipment of some advanced chip-making equipment to China,[62] though on 27 March 2024, Chinese presidentXi Jinping told Rutte that "no force can stop the pace of China's scientific and technological progress".[63]
Different stances onimmigration policy within his four-party coalition had existed since the coalition government was formed. VVD and CDA supported restrictions on immigration, while D66 and CU opposed them. On 7 July 2023, the parties failed to reach an agreement and unanimously decided that they could not continue working together within the coalition. Following this, Rutte immediately offered the resignation of his government.[64][65] The king asked that the prime minister and his government "continue to carry out the duties they consider necessary to the interests of the Kingdom in a caretaker capacity".[66] Three days later, Rutte announced his departure both as political leader of the VVD and from national politics in general, after the installation of the next government.[67][68]
While serving as outgoing prime minister, Rutte he condemned theOctober 7 attacks in 2023 and expressed his support toIsrael and its right to self-defense.[69] Notably, he was the first foreign leader to speak with Israeli prime ministerBenjamin Netanyahu on that day.[70] Later that same month he visited Israel to express solidarity with the country, meeting with Netanyahu in Jerusalem.[71] He rejected calls for a ceasefire in theGaza war but supported "humanitarian pauses" to provide aid to civilians in theGaza Strip.[72][73] Though the Netherlands provided military aid to Israel, in February 2024 a court in the Netherlands ordered the Dutch government to stop exporting parts forF-35 fighter jets to the country.[74]
Due to the resignation of the cabinet general elections were held early, on22 November 2023, with the VVD now under the leadership ofDilan Yeşilgöz.
In February 2024, Rutte visitedSaudi Arabia and spoke with the Saudi crown princeMohammed bin Salman about "broad cooperation".[75] He would travel to Paris on 26 February, whereEmmanuel Macron was hosting an emergency summit concerning the situation inUkraine, which had suffered the loss ofAvdiivka due to a lack of available ammunition. Czech PMPetr Fiala proposed to purchase 500,000 rounds of artillery ammunition forVolodymyr Zelensky's forces. This was the second time in one month the Czech government had aired the matter. The French had previously vetoed the idea to purchase the ammunition from foreign sources.[76] On behalf of his government, Rutte announced that they would provide €100 million for this purpose.[77] On 1 March Rutte increased the commitment to €250 million for Fiala's venture, as he went toKharkiv to tour an underground metro station that had been repurposed into a primary school together with Zelensky. During this same tour, they signed the Netherlands-Ukraine bilateral security agreement.[78][79]
Later that month, Rutte threatened Israel withsanctions if the Israeli military launched a large-scaleinvasion of Rafah, saying the attack would be a "game changer" and have "political consequences".[80] He also met with Chinese president Xi Jinping, where Rutte discussed theRussian invasion of Ukraine and tried to persuadeChina to exert its influence on Russia. Rutte said that "this is a direct security threat for us, because if Russia will be successful in Ukraine, it will be a threat to the whole of Europe. It will not end with Ukraine."[81]
United States Secretary of DefenseLloyd Austin and Mark Rutte at NATO Headquarters in Brussels, Belgium on 17 October 2024Rutte with European Commission PresidentUrsula von der Leyen on 29 October 2024
Following his departure from national politics, Rutte succeededJens Stoltenberg asSecretary General of NATO on 1 October 2024 during a ceremonial handover at theNATO Headquarters inBrussels.[87][88][89] Despite having previously stated that he wanted to focus on high school teaching after his prime ministership, he announced his candidacy for the position in October 2023. His bid received public support from the governments of the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and France in February 2024.[90][91][92][93] Rutte managed to overcome opposition from the last holdouts of Turkey, Hungary, Slovakia, and Romania in the months thereafter, with his only opponent, Romanian presidentKlaus Iohannis, dropping out a week before his official appointment on 26 June 2024.[90][94][95]
In October 2024, Rutte said that more than 600,000 Russiansoldiers had beenkilled or wounded during the war against Ukraine.[96]
As secretary general, Rutte called on member nations to ramp up their defense spending and production, stating that a wartime mentality was required. He said that the additional spending would be necessary to guarantee a collective defense and to avert a Russian attack following its invasion of Ukraine.[97]
Rutte has repeatedly urged sending more weapons toUkraine.[98][99] He said that any futurepeace talks with Russia should be led by Ukraine from a position of strength.[100]
Rutte criticizedChina's stance towardsTaiwan, saying that "China is bullying Taiwan, and pursuing access to our critical infrastructure in ways that could cripple our societies." He added, "Russia, China, but also North Korea and Iran, are hard at work to try to weaken North America and Europe. To chip away at our freedom, they want to reshape theglobal order, not to create a fairer one, but to secure their own spheres of influence."[101][102]
2025
Rutte with U.S. PresidentDonald Trump on 13 March 2025
In March 2025, following the newTrump administration's announcement that it does not support NATO membership for Ukraine,[103] Rutte stated that Ukraine had never been promised NATO membership as part ofa peace agreement.[104][105] and that Europe and the US should eventually normalise relations with Russia after a peace agreement.[106]
In June 2025, Rutte voiced support forUS strikes on Iranian nuclear sites: in a private message published by Trump,[110][111] Rutte praised and thanked the latter for his "decisive action" inIran, calling it "truly extraordinary and something no one else dared to do."[112]
In December 2025, during a NATO keynote speech, Rutte warned that Russia has returned large scale war to Europe and argued that NATO countries must urgently prepare their societies, economies and armed forces for a level of conflict comparable to that endured by their grandparents or great grandparents, in order to deter war and prevent such devastation from becoming reality.[113]
Political style
Rutte has been described as hard-working, charming and pragmatic. He responds to messages from politicians within five minutes, and works "around the clock." Concerning ideology in politics, he has said "If you are looking for vision, you'd better visit an optician."[114]
^(in Dutch) Oranje, Joost and Guus Valk,"Kamp: VVD moet Rutte nu steunen",Archived 15 May 2014 at theWayback MachineNRC Handelsblad (15 September 2007). Retrieved 14 May 2014. Literal English translation: "Verdonk was yesterday by Mark Rutte formally expelled from the VVD's parliamentary party in the House of Representatives after she had again voiced criticism of the party in the press." Dutch original: "Verdonk werd gisteren formeel door Mark Rutte uit de Tweede Kamerfractie van de VVD gezet, nadat zij in de pers opnieuw kritiek had geuit op de fractie."
^Van Kessel, Alexander (2016). "'Doe dit onze partij niet aan, doe dit ons land niet aan'" ['Don't do this to our party, don't do this to our country']. In Van Baalen, Carla; Van Kessel, Alexander (eds.).Kabinetsformaties 1977-2012 [Cabinet formations 1977-2012] (in Dutch). Boom. pp. 319–348.ISBN978-94-6105-466-1.
^Baalen, C. C. van; Kessel, Alexander van, eds. (2016).Kabinetsformaties 1977-2012 [Cabinet Formations 1977-2012] (in Dutch). Amsterdam: Boom. pp. 511–523.ISBN978-94-6105-466-1.
^"Plenaire verslagen".www.tweedekamer.nl (in Dutch). 9 September 2020. Archived fromthe original on 21 January 2021. Retrieved25 September 2020.Je moet gaan nadenken: kun je een begroting maken via een intergouvernementeel verdrag of kun je nu een Europese Unie oprichten zonder Hongarije en Polen?
Underline signifies theparliamentary leader (first mentioned) and theSpeaker Angle brackets signify a replacement member or a member who prematurely left this House of Representatives
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