Imperial Cabinet of the Batavian Empire

The Imperial Cabinet of the Batavian Empire is the highest executive body of the Empire. The terms 'Imperial Government' and 'Imperial Cabinet' are often mixed. The Imperial Cabinet are the ministers and state-secretaries. The Imperial Government is literally the Imperial Cabinet + the governing parties and the Emperor.

Formation of the Imperial Cabinet
The Cabinet is completely appointed by the Emperor. But in reality there is much more behind it. It starts with the House election. The largest party can form a coalition, and as soon as that process is done they vote whom will be the informator consulati (Prime-Minister-Elect). The informator consulati is (very often) appointed Prime-Minister after this by the Emperor. Until that time the former Prime-Minister acts as demissionary Prime-Minister and will continue with his usual duties, and is still responsible to the new House.

After the Prime-Minister is appointed the demissionary Prime-Minister leaves office. The other ministers and state-secretaries stay in charge, but as acting ministers under the new Prime-Minister. The Prime-Minister then selects his contemplated ministers and nominates them. The House of Consuls then starts with hearing sessions in which they will critically question the ministers. Usually there is only one hearing session, but with larger and more serious ministries it could take longer. If a majority in the House wants a second hearing session there will be another session. This can take as long as the House wants till they deem that they have enough information to vote. The vote is never directly after the hearing session, it's always the day after. If the House votes to discourage the Emperor from appointing the minister, it is likely that the Emperor will adopt the advice, because the minister does not enjoy a mandate in the House of Consuls, however this is not always the case. The Emperor can also choose to appoint the minister anyway if there were, for example, a lot of abstentions or he deems the minister worthy despite the parliaments advice. The Prime-Minister can also choose to withdraw the nomination if it's clear that the minister won't receive a majority in the House, this happens rather less than rejections, because it's likely that the Prime-Minister will support his nominee till the end. The nominated minister can however choose to withdraw himself if a rejection is imminent.

After the appointment of a minister he can choose his own State-Secretary who will help him in fufilling his duties, as well as temporarily acting as minister in the case the minister is not able do his job. Sometimes the Prime-Minister (or the Emperor) recommends a State-Secretary for the minister. The State-Secretaries are a member of the Imperial Cabinet, but do not attend the Council of Ministers.

As soon as all the State-Secretaries are appointed by the ministers, the ministers and the State-Secretaries go to the Imperial Palace where they will inform the Emperor of their policy, which will be in line with the agreement the government made. After that the Emperor will not meet regulary with the cabinet, and is only informed once a week by the Prime-Minister, though he can always call ministers with him to discuss policy.

Ministries
The Imperial Cabinet comprises of certain ministries. There are 16 ministries in total from which 2 are without portfolio. New ministries can be installed by Imperial Decree, although this has not yet happened.

The ministers appointed for the period 2051-2056 are all from the five governing parties: The Loyalist Party, Christian Democrats, Roman Moderate Order, Right-Wing Conservatives and Royal Legion of Honour. The convention that State Secretaries used to be mostly from the same party as their respective minister has been abandoned completely at the inauguration of this cabinet, given that for the first time a majority of State Secretaries has a different party affiliation than the minister.

By-pass vacancy of a minister
In some cases a minister resigns during his term in office or is dismissed by the Emperor. Ministers can resign if they believe they are not the right person to execute policy anymore, or have arguments with the Prime-Minister regarding the policy. If a minister misinforms the House of Consuls or fails to do his job properly they can motion a vote vote of no-confidence in which they will ask the Emperor to dismiss the minister. The minister will probably resign if such a vote of no-confidence is supported by a majority. If the minister does not resign the Emperor can dismiss him. It is theoretically possible that the Emperor decides to keep the minister on anyways, but this rarely happens. The only scenario in which this is could happen is if elections are in a period of less than a few weeks or the cabinet is already demissionary.

The Emperor can also choose to dismiss a minister himself, this happens if the Emperor deems that the minister is not serving the Empire properly or the Emperor is misinformed by him. It could also be that the Prime-Minister asks for the ministers resignation but he refuses to, or simply if the a Emperor and the minister can't come to an agreement together.

Either way, the State-Secretary will become the acting minister. The Prime-Minister can than nominate a new person to become minister, this can also be the State-Secretary. The nominee must again attend the hearing sessions of the House and can afterwards be appointed minister. The new minister can choose his own State-Secretary although it is highly likely that it will be the same State-Secretary.

If the State-Secretary resigns together with the minister the Deputy Prime-Minister will act as temporarily minister until another ministers is appointed. If more ministers resign as the same time State-Secretaries of other ministers can be temporarily appointed as acting minister.

By-pass vacancy of the Prime-Minister
The Prime-Minister can, just like all the other ministers, resign or be dismissed because of a vote of no-confidence or all the others reason mentioned above. If the Prime-Minister resigns the Deputy Prime-Minister will automatically become the minister without other hearing sessions, as the post of Deputy Prime-Minister is mainly focused on filling in for a Prime-Minister vacancy. The place of Deputy Prime-Minister will, as soon as he is appointed Prime-Minister, will be filled in by another minister until another Deputy Prime-Minister has been nominated and appointed.

In some cases the Deputy Prime-Minister will keep serving as Prime-Minister until the new election, however, it is more likely the coalition appoints another Informator Consulati, who is then appointed Prime-Minister by the Emperor.

Mid-term cabinet resignation
A vote of no-confidence can also be motioned for the whole cabinet, if a majority in the House loses confidence in the ruling cabinet. That would also mean that the governing parties would partly need to vote in favour of the vote of no-confidence. Unlike a minister the cabinet as a whole can continue to govern as demissionary till all the new ministers are appointed, starting with the Prime-Minister, however it is likely that the Emperor will dissolve the House and call for re-elections, instead of appointing a whole new cabinet.

Withdrawal of legislative support
Sometimes a coalition party withdraws itself from the government, the ministers belonging to the party which withdrew support can choose to follow the party-line and resign. Ministers can also decide to serve on in the cabinet. In both cases the cabinet can serve on if they manage to form a so-called 'rump-cabinet' which serves till the next election. If they manage to form a rump-cabinet within 3 months they can keep governing. If they fail, the Prime-Minister will offer his resignation to the Emperor and the Emperor will dissolve the parliament.

List of former cabinets
The Batavian Empire has known 8 cabinets so far: Cabinet Montgomery-I, Cabinet Montgomery-II, Cabinet Northam-I, Cabinet Fornost-I, Cabinet Barthelomeus-I and Cabinet Barthelomeus-II * Between 2034 and 2042, the office of Prime-Minister was vacant and observed by the Minister of National Affairs, acting as the Chair of the Council of Ministers

Council Cabinet of the Benelux
As soon as Saviël made the Prime-Ministers of the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg sign the Treaty of Doorn he formed a cabinet from members of his own banned Loyalist Party and some parliamentarians from the UEMP. Saviël-Citus lead the cabinet as acting Prime-Minister of the Benelux, as well as being regent of the Batavian Empire. Another notable member was the acting minister of Domestic Affairs, later Prime-Minister Jonathan Montgomery. The main task of the Council Cabinet of the Benelux was to advice the regent, who was in this case also the leader of the cabinet and to lead the conquest of Europe. The Council Cabinet of the Benelux only comprised of acting ministers and was not responsible to a parliament. However, as the conquest continued the Council Cabinet of the Benelux would sometimes explane itself to the Demissionary European Parliament. The Council Cabinet of the Benelux resigned June 17, 2034. This was because Prime-Minister Saviël would be crowned Emperor the next day, and said he couldn't serve in the cabinet and be Emperor.

Imperial Batavian Council Cabinet
One day after the Council Cabinet of the Benelux resigned, a new Council Cabinet was formed, *but this time without a Prime-Minister. The Council Cabinet of the Empire was basically the Council Cabinet of the Benelux, but without Prime-Minister. The acting minister of domestic affairs, Jonathan Montgomery, was the chair of the Council of Ministers. The duties of the second Council Cabinet were finishing the war and negotiate with the United States. Also the proclamation of the Royal Alliance was one of the main tasks. The Council Cabinet of the Empire helped drawing the Act of the Constitution which the Emperor signed in March 2042. As soon as the elections of the House of Consuls and the Senate were held the Council Cabinet of the Empire became demissionary and after the Act of the Constitution was adopted by the Consulate they started forming a new cabinet, which would become the Cabinet Montgomery-I.

Cabinet Montgomery-I
After the first ever held election of the House of Consuls the Joint Session of Consulate unanimously adopted the constitution. A day after the formation started. The Loyalist Party, lead by Jonathan Montgomery, gained a large amount of seats: 224 and was hereby by far the largest party. They quickly formed a coalition with the Christian Democrats, together they had 260 of the 500 seats. The Cabinet Montgomery-I lead the country smoothly and without real problems they managed to fill their 5 years. However, during the last year of the term Prime-Minister Montgomery seemed to be more critical of the Christian Democrats. He claimed that the Christian Democrats were moving towards a stronger conservative government by discouraging cabinet decisions. The Christian Democrats in the House were furious after the news, but decided to stay in the coalition untill the term was finished.

Cabinet Montgomery-II
After the election of 2047 the Loyalist Party lost some seats, but was still the largest party in the house. Despite the wish of the Christian Democrats to continue governing (which also seemed the wish of the Emperor) Montgomery decided to have coalition talks with the Social-Democratic Party (58 seats). A few weeks later Jonathan Montgomery was elected Prime-Minister-Elect by the SDP and LP (251-247) to form Cabinet Montgomery-II. The Emperor strongly opposed in private, but eventually agreed. Cabinet Montgomery-II had Cofidence & Supply from the Independent Jewish Group. Later however, due to too many differences between the Emperor and Montgomery, the Emperor dismissed him as Prime-Minister and Deputy Prime-Minister Friso Northam (LP) became the new Prime-Minister, which immediatly lead to the withdrawal of the SDP from the coalition.

Cabinet Northam-I
Prime-Minister Friso Northam started with the formation of a rump cabinet, as the Emperor rejected a plan to dissolve the House completely and call for fresh elections. The RLOF, RMO and RWC agreed to help with the rump cabinet rather quick. Northam then had talks with the ANF, but they eventually refused to help. The CD managed to save Prime-Minister Northam nevertheless, ensuring his cabinet with a 20-seat majority in the House. The 4 parties agreed to fill the positions of the former SDP ministers, but during the hearing sessions however, two nominees were rejected because many Loyalist consuls who were formerly very pro-Montgomery voted against. When the third nominee was close to being rejected as well, the Emperor dissolved the House of Consuls and called for fresh elections.

Cabinet Fornost-I
After the election of 2048 the Union of Social and Liberal Democrats won the elections with only a one-seat difference with the Loyalist Party. Floor Leader Arthur Fornost started coalition talks, first with the LP and CD, but later also with the GPP. After a formation, the four parties decided to form a coaliton and elected Arthur Fornost Prime-MInister-Elect, who was then appointed Prime-Minister by the Emperor. Prime-Minister Fornost is seen as a rather dull Prime-Minister, but has always been able to do the job. Fornost wasn’t very publically active, but was always able to maintain a good relation with the different coalition parties and the entire House of Consuls. His cabinet was ensured with Confidence & Supply from the RWC, RMO and RLOF. Arthur Fornost resigned as Prime-Minister in February 2050, two years after his appointment, simply because he believed he had helped the Empire out of the political tumult of the previous two cabinets and managed to get it back on track. He was succeeded by Barthelomeus Kuyper, also from the USLD.

Cabinet Barthelomeus-I
After the resignation of Arthur Fornost, Barthelemeus Kuyper from the Department of Scotland succeeded him in as both Prime-Minister and Party Leader of the USLD. Kuyper was far more active compared to Fornost and was more left-wing orientated. This lead to difficulty among his own party members with the new annual budget who dissagreed with, for example, the increase of income tax. In the midst of the debate a huge scandal came to light within the Ministry of Science and Infrastructure, about a shortage of money due to Russian olligarchs who had been covering up money during the Fornost administration. This lead to the resignation of the Science Minister and a motion of no-confidence against the cabinet supported by the entire opposition. Due to this scandal the CD almost blocked the budget. Nevertheless was crisis inevitable, as 29 consuls of the USLD caucus had major disagreements with their Floor Leader and splitted from the party. Although Kuyper still had a majority, he decided to offer his resignation and the Emperor in turn decided to dissolve the House of Consuls, scheduling new elections for september 2050.

Cabinet Grister-I
Various coalition talks after the elections of september 2050 failed due to the complex composition of the new House. The largely grown ANF was excluded from coalition talks and the SDP, which had become the largest party with a small lead over the LP was not able to get enough support in the House for a minority cabinet and did not have enough partners to form a coaliton. After the LP gave up coalition talks as well, House Speaker Peter asked for new elections, which the Emperor scheduled for march 2051. A rump cabinet, comprising 9 parties (LP, USLD, CD, PP, GPP, RWC, CWP, RMO and RLOF) and with additional Confidence & Supply from the SDP, RPP and IJG was formed and Speaker Pro Tempore Lotte Grister was appointed prime-pinister, becoming the first female and independent prime-minister of the Batavian Empire. Grister's task was to create the bi-annual budget and adress the questions for electoral and constitutional reform.