De Croo Ministry

Date Dissolved
 President
 Member Parties
 Election(s)

The **De Croo Ministry** was formed on January 11, 2040 amid a political crisis and lasted until its dissolution on May 24, 2042 after the resignation of Speaker Wilhelm De Croo.

Following the 2039-40 Morranian Political Crisis, a coalition of opposition parties operating under the banner of the United Opposition of Morra agreed to form a government following the 2040 National Assembly election, which had given opposition parties a majority in the National Assembly of Morra. With Speaker Peter Koonz of the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy threatening to use his power to delay the inauguration of Kairos Hemlock as president, the coalition motioned for an early speakership election and formed the De Croo ministry on January 11, 2040 with Party of the Labourers leader Wilhelm De Croo at its head. With the presidency vacant, De Croo became acting president for 9 days until the inauguration of Hemlock and her vice president Fachnan Opus on January 20, 2040.

On June 29, 2040, interior secretary Hubertus Heil formally introduced the *National Reform Bill* to the National Assembly and began the legislative process behind the passing of the bill; following three stages of review, the National Reform Bill passed the National Assembly in September and was formally signed into law by President Hemlock on September 17, 2040 as the National Reform Act of 2040. With the new powers granted to her by the National Reform Act, President Hemlock established the Ministry for Environmental Protection on September 19, 2040 with Nathalie Elimas of the DPV as secretary of state, whilst the Ministry for Housing and Communities was established on September 25, 2040 with Gabriel Serville of the PPM as secretary of state.

In the afternoon of March 16, 2042, Speaker Wilhelm De Croo and the leaders of the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy, Worker's Political Alliance, and the Progressive Party held a joint press conference to announce their proposal for a constitutional reform package which would see the presidency stripped of all executive functions and reduced to a ceremonial head of state. Following the return of results of a constitutional referendum on the issue, which showed a 63% rejection of Speaker De Croo's proposals, a growing movement began to emerge both from the general public and in the National Assembly demanding that De Croo resign from office after his "spectacular miscalculation" of the public mood. Despite this, Wilhelm De Croo publicly remained defiant and refused to resign, instead alleging that he had seen evidence of electoral fraud conducted by the non-partisan Electoral Commission and made several unsubstantiated claims that there was an elite conspiracy against him and his government.

Following an assault on commission chief Willena Barrow outside her house on May 20, 2040 by a left wing extremist, the Electoral Commission's executive committee collectively resigned citing De Croo's "malicious and deliberate attacks on democracy". Whilst Speaker De Croo claimed the committee's resignation as a victory, the move was near universally condemned by party leaders, whilst President Kairos Hemlock cautioned the move would lead to an undermining of democracy. Amid the crisis, party leaders from across the coalition were invited to the Presidential Palace by President Hemlock in the evening of May 21st to discuss nominating a replacement speaker. On May 22, 2042, Kairos Hemlock gave a speech to politicians in Brussels where she gave an ultimatum to De Croo to resign or face early elections in which the Party of the Labourers (PvdA) would likely loose a significant amount of seats. Following the tabling of a motion of no confidence in his Party of the Labourers leadership the previous day, De Croo tendered his resignation as speaker to the National Assembly in the morning of May 24th and as leader of the PvdA the same evening, leaving finance secretary Federico Pinedo as head of the party.

## History

### Reforms of 2040

Following the 2039-40 Morranian Political Crisis, a coalition of opposition parties operating under the banner of the United Opposition of Morra agreed to form a government following the 2040 National Assembly election, which had given opposition parties a majority in the National Assembly of Morra. With Speaker Peter Koonz of the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy threatening to use his power to delay the inauguration of Kairos Hemlock as president, the coalition motioned for an early speakership election and formed the De Croo ministry on January 11, 2040 with Party of the Labourers leader Wilhelm De Croo at its head. With the presidency vacant, De Croo became acting president for 9 days until the inauguration of Hemlock and her vice president Fachnan Opus on January 20, 2040.

On June 19, 2040, Speaker Wilhelm De Croo gave formal permission for President Kairos Hemlockto address the National Assembly of Morra. During her speech, Hemlock announced that her government would lay a large reform package titled the *National Reform Act* before the legislative branch, which would contain provisions for the nationalisation of EuroCorp and its subsidies, for the restructuring of the armed forces, and for the repeal of "draconian legislation" passed by previous governments, as well as including constitutional reforms to allow referenda to legally be held and redistributing power within government. Whilst broadly popular within the governing coalition, the policies were criticised by the VVD, APA, DENK, and NP as being highly partisan and detrimental to internal stability, particularly in the wake of the previous year's political crisis, with the VVD and DENK in particular opposing the nationalisation of EuroCorp. On June 22, 2040, EuroCorp CEO Werner Reinheart met with President Hemlock and Speaker De Croo at the Presidential Palace, before announcing his support for the legislation the following day. On June 29th, interior secretary Hubertus Heil formally introduced the *National Reform Bill* to the National Assembly and began the legislative process behind the passing of the bill; following three stages of review, the National Reform Bill passed the National Assembly in September and was formally signed into law by President Hemlock on September 17, 2040 as the National Reform Act of 2040.

With the new powers granted to her by the National Reform Act, President Hemlock established the Ministry for Environmental Protection on September 19, 2040 with Nathalie Elimas of the DPV as secretary of state, whilst the Ministry for Housing and Communities was established on September 25, 2040 with Gabriel Serville of the PPM as secretary of state. Additionally, Hemlock began to establish cabinet committees comprised of smaller groups of ministers to speed up cabinet decision making processes, whilst granting presidential advisors voting rights within cabinet meetings. Despite internal resistance from coalition partners, President Kairos Hemlock allowed Werner Reinheart to remain as CEO of EuroCorp following its nationalisation on September 20, 2040, but instead packed the board of directors with government and party loyalists, whilst business secretary Wouter Beke became chairman of the company. Reforms to the armed forces were broadly welcomed by the military command and defence secretary Ophelia de Ruiter introduced several pieces of secondary legislation through the autumn of 2040 to further streamline the command structure and reintegrate EuroCorp private security firms; the *Defence Integration Act of 2040* provided for the transfer of all private security equipment to the Ministry of Defence, whilst also allowing the government to bypass employment law and terminate all personal contracts with the security firms, with the government instead offering recruitment into the state military. The passing of the Defence Integration Act led to unrest at several of the EuroCorp owned barracks in November 2040, but further negotiations between the two groups led to a general wage rise for all soldiers of the Morranian armed forces being implemented in December 2040.

### Further policy actions

    On February 15, 2041, Speaker Wilhelm De Croo permitted President Kairos Hemlock to give her second major address to the National Assembly of Morra; during her speech, titled "*On the State of the Nation*", Hemlock praised the successes of the National Reform Act and announced that her government would seek to renegotiate the Amsterdam Agreement to bring the Republic of Morra to equal status as Dunsteen and to allow Morra to have offensive military capacity rather than the purely defensive capability that the agreement had imposed. Additionally, Hemlock announced her intention to prioritise relations with Avalonia, Dunsteen, and the Fox Dynasty over other regional powers with the aim to establish a new European trade route to benefit all states. President Hemlock's address to the National Assembly was followed on February 19, 2041 with an address from finance secretary Federico Pinedo who announced that Morra would open a "technology subsidy system" to incentivise tech companies to invest in the Morranian economy. Amid the 2041 United States Constitutional Crisis, Kairos Hemlock met with acting president Robert Menendez of the United States during Menendez's tour of Europe in February 2041. After having secured a joint cabinet position, Kairos Hemlock travelled to Stockholm on June 18, 2041 with foreign secretary Markus Quade, defence secretary Ophelia de Ruiter, finance secretary Federico Pinedo, and presidential advisor Christine Lagarde to meet with Avalonian väldeminister Ada Nilsen and prime minister Nina Auber, and Dunsteenian leader Olaf Scholz in order to begin negotiations on a revised Amsterdam Agreement. After a day of negotiations, Hemlock returned to Morra alongside defence secretary de Ruiter and finance secretary Pinedo, whilst foreign secretary Quade and Christine Lagarde remained in Avalonia for talks with their Dunsteenian counterparts. In September 2041, Hemlock denounced a coup d'état which overthrew US President Robert Menendez, and called for the Fox Dynasty to provide increased global security functions after the "abdication" of American leadership. In October, Kairos Hemlock made a week long tour of the Fox Dynasty to coincide with the inauguration of Angelica Rivera as Libirachi president; during Hemlock's first presidency in 2039, Rivera was the first foreign figure to meet with her as the then Libirachi foreign secretary, reportedly leading to close ties between the two leaders. At a bilateral press conference with President Rivera on October 10, 2041, Hemlock announced the two states had agreed to a new trade deal which would see Morra become home to several branches of prominent Libirachi tech firms under a new scheme.

### 2042 political crisis

In the afternoon of March 16, 2042, Speaker Wilhelm De Croo and the leaders of the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy, Worker's Political Alliance, and the Progressive Party held a joint press conference to announce their proposal for a constitutional reform package which would see the presidency stripped of all executive functions and reduced to a ceremonial head of state. Under the proposal, a new post of prime minister would assume the executive powers of the president and speaker, with the latter also reduced to a purely procedural position. Having been unaware of the proposals made by members of her government until their publication, President Kairos Hemlock remained silent on the issue until March 18, 2042, when she held a press conference alongside Vice President Fachnan Opus to decry the proposals as "a blatant attack on our democracy and government" - it has been suggested that Vice President Opus was behind Hemlock's aggressive tone towards De Croo's proposals, and indeed many of Hemlock's speeches in the aftermath bore the linguistic style of Opus' writing. Despite not having the support of the Democratic Party of the People or the Liberal Party, Speaker De Croo was able to pass through legislation to allow him to hold a referendum with the backing of opposition parties; De Croo's reliance on the VVD and APA to pass the required legislation severely harmed his personal approval ratings and that of the Party of the Labourers. Whilst many in the media expected President Hemlock to block the legislation, she unexpectedly signed it into law on March 29, 2042 after publicly claiming to not want to cause a constitutional crisis; leaked internal communications show that in fact, Fachnan Opus had persuaded Hemlock to allow the referendum and instead interfere with the results to make it such a defeat that De Croo cannot claim legitimacy for his government, thereby removing De Croo without being seen to be personally responsible.

Following the return of the results of the constitutional referendum, which showed a 63% rejection of Speaker De Croo's proposals, a growing movement began to emerge both from the general public and in the National Assembly demanding that De Croo resign from office after his "spectacular miscalculation" of the public mood. Despite this, Wilhelm De Croo publicly remained defiant and refused to resign, instead alleging that he had seen evidence of electoral fraud conducted by the non-partisan Electoral Commission and made several unsubstantiated claims that there was an elite conspiracy against him and his government. Following an assault on commission chief Willena Barrow outside her house on May 20, 2040 by a left wing extremist, the Electoral Commission's executive committee collectively resigned citing De Croo's "malicious and deliberate attacks on democracy". Whilst Speaker De Croo claimed the committee's resignation as a victory, the move was near universally condemned by party leaders, whilst President Kairos Hemlock cautioned the move would lead to an undermining of democracy. Amid the crisis, party leaders from across the coalition were invited to the Presidential Palace by President Hemlock in the evening of May 21st to discuss nominating a replacement speaker. On May 22, 2042, Kairos Hemlock gave a speech to politicians in Brussels where she gave an ultimatum to De Croo to resign or face early elections in which the Party of the Labourers (PvdA) would likely loose a significant amount of seats. Following the tabling of a motion of no confidence in his Party of the Labourers leadership the previous day, De Croo tendered his resignation as speaker to the National Assembly in the morning of May 24th and as leader of the PvdA the same evening, leaving finance secretary Federico Pinedo as head of the party. At the instruction of Kairos Hemlock, the governing coalition passed through a motion to hold a snap speakership election, which saw defence secretary and DPV leader Ophelia de Ruiter being elected as the seventh speaker of the National Assembly at the head of a near identical cabinet coalition. Whilst contemporary accounts largely overlooked the effect of the crisis on the state of democracy in Morra, it is generally regarded that Hemlock and the DPV did indeed manipulate the referendum results to inflict damage on Speaker De Croo, before twisting his correct allegations of fraud to make De Croo appear to reject public will and thus effectively end his political career.

## Ministers

 **President of Morra**Koonz • **De Croo** • de Ruiter I, II**First Term (2039)**Assassination of Sunil Bakshi • 2039-40 Morranian Political Crisis • 2039 Morranian Vice Presidential Election • Brussels Massacre • Impeachment of Kairos Hemlock • People's Party for Freedom and Democracy**Second Term (2040 -)**National Reform Act of 2040 • 2042 Constitutional Referendum • 2042 Morranian Government Crisis • Brussels Proclamation • Democratic Party of the People

 **Political Career**
Derigo Disease Debate • Assassination of Sunil Bakshi • People's Party for Freedom and Democracy

 **Electoral History**2035 National Assembly Election • 2036 National Assemblu Election • 2037 National Assembly Election • 2037 Vice Presidential Election • 2040 Presidential Election

## See Also

* Speaker of the National Assembly of Morra