ABSTRACT
The Wim Kok I government took office on 22 August 1994. The Kok I government started when the economic tide in the Netherlands was rising. Social Security was a major theme relating to socio-economic policy. Two main national infrastructure projects were controversial during government formation. One was on a railroad from the port of Rotterdam to the German industrial Ruhrgebiet. The other point of controversy was on Schiphol airport. Liberal Democrats (D66) was a party keeping reforms of the system of representative democracy alive, and thus it wanted to place this theme onto the coalition agenda. The referendum was one of the key institutional innovations advocated by this party. One of the most drastic reforms dealt with in government formation was of the higher education system, in particular the rules for subsidization. The coalition agreement contained a procedure for considering introduction of an ecotax, internalizing environmental effects of different types of energy use, and the PvdA was alert on this point.
