The far-right Dutch populist Geert Wilders says he has agreed on a coalition government with three other right-of-centre parties nearly six months after the Netherlands held parliamentary elections.
"We have an agreement," Wilders said in The Hague on Wednesday as last-minute coalition talks continued ahead of a midnight (2200 GMT Wednesday) deadline.
Wilders said that no candidate for prime minister has yet been agreed on.
In March, the far-right, anti-Islam firebrand who came out on top in the polls in November, had shelved controversial demands such as a ban on mosques and given up his months-long bid to become prime minister.
Wilders said at the time that this was the only way to form a right-wing coalition.
The controversial politician's Party for Freedom (PVV) won a clear victory in the elections, taking 37 of 150 seats, but Wilders proved unable to secure enough support to replace Mark Rutte as prime minister.
The coalition Wilders seeks is set to include Rutte's liberal People's Party for Freedom and Democracy, Pieter Omtzigt's conservative New Social Contract (NSC) and the populist Farmer-Citizen Movement (BBB).
The plan is to form a loose alliance with a team of ministers, around half of whom are non-party experts. Former Social Democrat minister Ronald Plasterk was being discussed as a possible candidate for prime minister. However, the parliamentary group leaders initially refused to confirm this.
The exact content of the agreement was not yet available on Wednesday afternoon.
The coalition's parliamentary groupings have to give their approval of the deal before the midnight deadline.
After months of arduous talks, the party leaders had reached an agreement late Tuesday on finances, the biggest point of contention to date.
A final agreement was still pending early Wednesday evening.
It is expected that even after an agreement is finally reached, it will take an estimated six weeks before a government is actually in place.
Rutte has been prime minister for more than 13 years. In the summer of 2023, his centre-right coalition collapsed in a dispute over asylum policy. Rutte then announced his retirement from politics and is now the most promising candidate for the post of NATO Secretary General.
