"YES SHE CAN"

VVD leader Dilan Yesilgöz won't rule out working with Wilders

VVD leader Dilan Yesilgöz has told reporters she will not automatically rule out an alliance with the far-right PVV, saying that she first wants to see "what Mr Wilders comes up with".

Party leader Geert Wilders said after the cabinet collapsed in July that he could work with the VVD and that it is `time to put egos behind us'.

Wilders was a silent partner in Mark Rutte's first cabinet but pulled out, leading to the collapse of the minority coalition. And Rutte has been adamant that his party will not work with the PVV since Wilders led supporters in a chat of "fewer Moroccans" during an election meeting in 2017.

Yesilgöz, the current justice minister, told reporters that she did not want to keep the door shut as a matter of course. "I am more interested in who will be at the [negotiations] table and with what intentions," she said.

The "fewer Moroccans" chant was disgusting, she said. "But I want to look ahead," the minister said, ahead of Friday's cabinet meeting.

Prime minister Mark Rutte told reporters after that meeting that he fully supported Yesilgöz's line but that he would not comment in detail.

The new leader of the Christian Democrats, Henri Bontenbal, has said his party will not join a coalition with the PVV or the far-right FvD.