Closing summary
… and on that note, it’s a wrap!
The centrist D66 party is back in lead by the tiniest of margins of just over 15,000 votes ahead of Geert Wilders’s far-right PVV party as the vote count continues in the Dutch parliamentary election (14:14, 16:50).
The party’s 38-year-old charismatic leader Rob Jetten seen as the favourite to be the next prime minister, the youngest and first out gay in the Dutch history (15:41).
But the formal process is not expected to start before the next week as a meeting to appoint “a scout” to explore potential coalitions got delayed until Tuesday, as the result still hangs in balance (12:33, 15:13).
Several political leaders suggested already that the coalition forming process could take months, and even roll into the next year (13:32, 16:27).
In other news,
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia launched over 650 drones and 50 missiles against Ukraine overnight in “a complex, combined” strike against the country (10:24), which prompted neighbouring Poland to put its jets on high alert and close two airports as a precaution (10:31).
A German court on Thursday sentenced a German-Russian national to six years in prison for spying for Moscow and plotting arson attacks on sensitive infrastructure to undermine Berlin’s backing for Ukraine (14:46).
French police have arrested five more people, including a prime suspect, over this month’s daring Louvre museum robbery, the city’s prosecutor said (10:57).
Lithuanian prime minister Inga Ruginienė said this morning that Poland has agreed to postpone its plans to reopen border crossings with Belarus amid continuing fallout after smuggling ballons crossed into Lithuanian airspace forcing airport closures (10:56).
And that’s all from me, Jakub Krupa, for today.
If you have any tips, comments or suggestions, email me at [email protected].
I am also on Bluesky at @jakubkrupa.bsky.social and on X at @jakubkrupa.
Dutch election results so far
As things stand, the difference between the centrist D66 and the far-right PVV is just over 15,000 votes, and it looks like we may not get the final final result before early next week.
Here is where we are now in terms of projected seats:
