THE HAGUE, 19/02/03 - The negotiations on the formation of a new government are not proceeding very quickly. After almost a month of talks, Christian democrat (CDA) leader Jan Peter Balkenende and Labour (PvdA) leader Wouter Bos have not yet reached a single concrete result.

The tempo of the negotiations is frustrating conservative (VVD) leader Gerrit Zalm. "The financial setbacks are materialising in every direction, unemployment is rocketing, there is a threat of war and what do Balkenende and Bos do? Practically nothing," he gibed last weekend.

Bos himself is also concerned. "We have not yet anything to show for our work. We cannot keep that up for much longer," he complained last week. And he has meanwhile dubbed the coming week "the week of the truth". If PvdA and CDA cannot get down to business then, it is possible that "pessimism will take hold of me," as Bos put it.

Are the negotiations really going slowly? They are if compared with last year's government formation. The CDA, Pim Fortuyn List (LPF) and VVD only needed 68 days after the election on 15 May to draw up a coalition agreement and find a team of ministers and state secretaries.

But lengthy cabinet formations are quite normal in the Netherlands. The formation of the cabinet under Joop den Uyl (1973) and the third cabinet led by Willem Drees (1956) took 163 and 122 days respectively.

The formation of Wim Kok's first cabinet (1994) was also long. After VVD leader Frits Bolkestein had unexpectedly withdrawn from the talks, the Queen saved the formation with a trick; she instructed PvdA leader Kok to first write a coalition agreement and then to look for partners to go along with it. After 111 days, PvdA and VVD joined forces after all, together with the center-left (D66) party.

But the most notorious was the formation of 1977. After months of talks with the PvdA, CDA leader Dries Van Agt broke off the negotiations. Within no time, but 208 days after the election, he then formed a government with the VVD.