Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte stepped down due to a child support scandal, but said he would remain as interim leader until a new cabinet was formed.
Rutte, now nearing the end of his third term as prime minister, is a center-right politician and one of the longest-serving leaders in Europe, alongside German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Ms. Merkel will step down in the fall when Germany holds federal elections and her party will elect a new leader this weekend to succeed her as chancellor.
Unlike Ms Merkel, Mr. Rutte has not ruled out returning to power and said his government would stay until a replacement cabinet was formed so that the Netherlands was not left without a leader in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.
Dutch cabinet formation has been slow in recent years, with the current four-party alliance requiring a record 225 days of negotiations after the 2017 elections.
At the heart of the scandal is the revelation that since 2012, thousands of families have been falsely accused of child benefit fraud. Families, usually with an immigrant background, were ordered to repay thousands of euros, without any form of appeal.