Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s coalition government collapsed after just a year and a half in office on Friday in a row over measures to curb the flow of migrants. The AFP news agency reports that Rutte, the leader of the centre-right VVD party, had wanted to tighten curbs on reuniting families of asylum seekers, following a scandal last year about overcrowded migration centres in the Netherlands. But the Christen Unie – a Christian Democratic party that draws its main support from the staunchly Protestant “Bible Belt” in the central Netherlands – strongly opposed the plan. Europe’s second longest-serving leader after Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban is now expected to call elections to seek a mandate for his fifth coalition government since 2010.
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