EU climate chief Frans Timmermans says he wants to lead combined center-left bloc in Dutch elections

European Union climate chief Frans Timmermans says he wants to lead a combined campaign by two left-leaning parties that are joining forces ahead of Dutch parliamentary elections in late November

Netherlands Politics Timmermans

European Union climate chief Frans Timmermans said Thursday he wants to lead a combined campaign by two center-left parties that are joining forces ahead of Dutch parliamentary elections in late November.

Timmermans is a vice president of the EU's executive commission in charge of climate policy. He told Dutch national broadcaster NOS he has put himself forward as a candidate to lead the Labor Party and Green Left into the elections. The parties agreed Monday to form a united front on the left of the splintered Dutch political landscape.

Timmermans is a member of the Labor Party and a former foreign minister. He says he wants to be the next Dutch prime minister and aims to unite the increasingly polarized nation.

“I think it’s time for us in the Netherlands to grow closer together again instead of growing apart. The fragmentation in politics must be countered," he said. “We have enormous challenges — the climate crisis, nature is not in good shape. But also a war on the borders of Europe.”

He also wants to eradicate inequalities in Dutch society.

"We can only solve all this if we work shoulder to shoulder and if we are less divided than we have been in recent years,” he said.

No other candidates to lead the center-left bloc have yet come forward.

Early elections were called earlier this month when the Netherlands' longest-serving premier, Mark Rutte, and his four-party coalition resigned after failing to hammer out an agreement on how to rein in migration.

Rutte, who led four coalition governments, announced after the resignation that he will quit politics after a new coalition is installed following the Nov. 22 elections. Negotiations to broker a new coalition could take months.