Dutch caretaker Prime Minister Mark Rutte has narrowly survived a vote of no confidence over his conduct during talks to form a governing coalition.
But he remains under pressure after parliament adopted a formal motion of disapproval which noted he had not “spoken the truth” during the talks.
Mr Rutte is accused of lying about moves to sideline a troublesome MP.
“Parliament has given me a serious message and I will try my very best to win back confidence,” Mr Rutte said.
The 54-year-old has been in office for more than a decade and has been dubbed “Teflon Mark” for his ability to survive scandals.
However, almost the entire house of parliament backed the disapproval motion against him. His biggest coalition partner, Sigrid Kaag of the centre-left D66 party, said it was not clear to her that he would continue in charge of forming a new government.
Mr Rutte’s centre-right VVD party won the most seats in parliamentary elections just two weeks ago, and he was in talks to form a new coalition.
The scandal centres around the MP Pieter Omtzigt, whose Christian Democratic Appeal party formed part of the previous coalition.
Mr Omtzigt, a frequent critic of Mr Rutte, had helped expose a child welfare fraud scandal that led to the government resigning in January, ahead of elections in March.
His name appeared, alongside the words “position elsewhere”, in a document from the coalition talks that was photographed being carried by one of the chief negotiators as she rushed out of parliament having tested positive for Covid-19.
Amid speculation that Mr Rutte planned to sideline the popular MP, the prime minister initially denied discussing the issue.
However on Thursday he admitted that he had “remembered that wrong”, saying only that he had been reminded of the conversation after receiving a phone call earlier in the day, and insisting: “I did not lie”.