By Jim Snider 

In the Netherlands, despite the high repute with which the Citizens Assembly has been credited with conducting its business, the Parliament appears unlikely to pass its recommended reforms.  This is ironic because the recommendations of the Netherlands Citizens Assembly were far more modest than the recommendations of the British Columbia and Ontario Citizens Assemblies. 

The key difference may be that in the Netherlands the Citizens Assembly’s recommendations were purely advisory, whereas in British Columbia and Ontario they were put on the ballot as a referendum.  Professor Henk van der Kolk, a political scientist from the University of Twente, informed The Citizens Assembly Digest why he thinks the odds of passage there are dismal.

State of affairs at Dutch Burgerforum

In his view, the new government (formed after the November 2006 elections) is still discussing its position towards the proposals of the Citizens Assembly. The new minister of the Interior and Kingdom relations (PvdA) has shifted responsibility of this matter to another minister because although his party is officially in favor of the change—the rest of the coalition in power is not.
 
The junior minister has three options: (1) to accept the proposal; (2) to let it founder in the legislative process and die a legislative death; (3) or to reject the proposal. The third option means she has to explain her decision in parliament and the more radical opposition parties (including the GreenLeft) will use this decision to criticize the undemocratic attitude of the government. The first option means she has to implement a proposal which she and her party probably do not like very much. So the most likely option is the second; leaving the decision to parliament….where the opposition will prevail.

What happens with Citizens Assemblies in the Netherlands after this happens, remains to be seen.