It seems that this morning Dutch PM Jan Peter Balkenende is visiting the Queen to signal the resignation of the cabinet. The smallest of the three parties in the centre-right government, D66 with six seats, has signaled that it would not continue to support the coalition if Immigration Minister Rita Verdonk retains her portfolio. The cabinet refused, so now they have to resign.

The main coalition partners, the CDA and the VVD (Christian Democrats and Liberals), blame D66 for taking umbrage at a minister who was just doing her job. D66 complains that it did not intend to force a crisis on the government, it just wanted Verdonk to resign.

At the centre of this is Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Ms Verdonk is something of a controversial character in her own right, but her handling of Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s immigration status appears to have been the straw that broke the camel’s back. According to Trouw, Ayaan Hirsi Ali finds it “sad” that the cabinet fell over her immigration status.

It’s not clear whether there will be an election forthwith. It seems that Balkenende may be able to form a minority government with just the two main coalition partners, although the lifespan of such a government might be short. Otherwise, Dutch law calls for elections within three months. Polls suggest the centre-right parties do not have the support to come back into government, but it’s close enough that the election campaign might make a difference.

Update: Guy has a much more extensive post on the subject at A Few Euros More, which I didn’t see when I posted this.

Romania’s PM Tariceanu announced yesterday that he wants to withdraw Romania’s troops from Iraq.

Right now here are about 900 Romanian soldiers there — one full battalion, with the catchy name of “The Red Scorpions”. They’re deployed in the Al-Nasyria area. They don’t do combat operations. There’s an intelligence team and some de-miners. 900 non-combat soldiers may not sound like a lot, but they made Romania the fifth largest member of the coalition (after the US, Britain, South Korea and Italy).

Why were they there? Well, Romania places a high value on the security relationship with the US. (A cynic might suggest that they’re keeping up the payments on their national security insurance policy.) The numbers involved are not large, Romanian casualties have been very light (one death in three years, to a roadside bomb), so up until now it hasn’t seemed like a very expensive investment on Romania’s part.

The withdrawal isn’t a done deal, BTW. PM Tariceanu must ask the Defense Council for permission; unlike a US President, he isn’t Commander in Chief of the armed forces. And President Basescu (who until recently was saying that the troops should stay “until democracy is established”) may yet weigh in.

From a little distance, I have the impression of a government edging cautiously towards the door, floating a trial balloon and waiting to see how everyone else reacts.

Note that the new government of Italy is sharply cutting Italy’s military commitment to Iraq; the troop count there has dropped from 2,700 to 1,600, and Italian Foreign Minister Massimo D’Alema says all troops will be out by early 2007. That would leave the Poles (900 troops) and the Danes (550) as the only European countries other than Britain with significant numbers of troops in Iraq. (Hereby somewhat arbitrarily defined as more than 200 men. There are a dozen or so countries with 20 or 50 or 100 there.)

European countries that had significant troop levels in Iraq, but then left:

Spain — 1,300, left April 2004 (Zapatero government)
Hungary — 300, December 2004
Netherlands — 1,300, left March 2005
Ukraine — 1,600, left December 2005 (Yushchenko government)
Bulgaria — 460, left May 2006

So, there were nine (counting Britain); five have left, one looks getting ready to go, that would leave three.

No further comment, just taking note.

You can get away with this sort of thing while everyone is glued to their TV sets, watching 22 men chase a round thing, but eventually someone outside the country is likely to notice…

For four weeks now Lithuania has been without a government, ever since President Valdas Adamkus dismissed the ministers of the populist Labour Party Darbo partija, putting an end to the coalition formed by Prime Minister Algirdas Brazauskas. Valdas Vasiliauskas doubts whether the attempts to elect a successor will be successful. “This week Lithuania hopes to find a new candidate for the post of prime minister. This way it would know what the path out of the crisis looks like after the first path led to a dead-end. There are many options, but they all have one problem: they’re not capable of obtaining a majority. New elections would be the best solution, but this proposal probably won’t get enough votes either.”

From the estimable folks at Eurotopics.

Yesterday’s teaser for one of our local tabloids sent a chill, particularly on a bright and sunny day–

WM-Durst

Bier wird knapp!

Which is to say

World Cup Thirst

Beer shortages coming!

Let’s hope not…

Henry Farrell has a good piece up at Crooked Timber on the issues involved in the SWIFT data disclosure controversy. His case is that SWIFT did not, in fact do due diligence under Belgian law when it decided to give its records to the CIA. There is a precedent concerning US efforts to gain access to airline passenger data to the effect that whether or not a legitimate national security reason existed for the disclosure, it was not up to SWIFT to decide on behalf of Europeans.

It’s a good explanation of the issues at stake in Europe, and well worth the read.

Soccer cliches in general, actually, but edifying on this off day.

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They clearly deserved a lot better than going down 3-0 today.

Too bad Essien was not on the field : the lack of skilled shooters on Ghana’s part (and an horrendous call by an otherwise pretty good referee) doomed what could have been a tremendous upset.

Here’s hoping Spain or France send this cocky, overrated Brazilian team back home next Saturday.

News from Berlin these days tends to come from the enormous parties in front of the Brandenburger Tor or in the Tiergarten. But spare a thought for a moment from whether Ghana will beat the eminently beatable Brazilian team and glance over to the Reichstag building, home of Germany’s parliament.

Today, more or less as I write, Joschka Fischer is taking part in his final session as a German parliamentarian. He leaves behind a long list of firsts, significant achievements and all of the right enemies. Member of the first Green delegation in the Bundestag, first parliamentary leader of that delegation, first Green minister in a state government, member of the first Red-Green cabinet at the national level — and thus first Green vice-chancellor and first Green foreign minister.

He’ll be teaching for a year at Princeton, but nobody in the German press believes we have heard the last of Joschka Fischer. I don’t believe it either. He’s too big a talent to fade away.

Can the Italians win a game without a significant boost from the referees?

So, Franz Beckenbauer, the president of the organizing comittee of the World Cup, got married yesterday with his long-time partner Heidi Burmester.

Nothing especially interesting here, except for the shocking fact that the Kaiser did not even bother to let his coworkers know beforehand about his wedding. World Cup spokesman Jens Grittner has this amazing reaction to the news:

Heute beginnt für ihn ein ganz normaler Arbeitstag. Er wird sich die beiden Achtelfinalspiele Deutschland gegen Schweden in München und Argentinien gegen Mexiko in Leipzig anschauen.

Loosely and badly translated as : “Today is really a normal working day for him. He will attend the two round-of-16 games between Germany and Sweden in Munich and between Argentina and Mexico in Leipzig.”

I was tempted to say “lucky bastard” but then I realized that Beckenbauer also had to endure the ghastly England-Ecuador game this afternoon.