In the Netherlands the executive council of a municipality is College van Burgemeester en Wethouders (council of mayor and aldermen, B&W). It exists out of the government appointed mayor (burgemeester) and the aldermen (wethouders).
Aldermen are elected by the City Council. The members of the City Council all have their own portfolio on which they prepare, coordinate and plan policy and legislation for the City Council and execute legisation. The College van B&W have the duty to inform the City Council on all aspects of their policy. The College van B&W functions a collegial body and most decisions are taken by consensus. An alderman will lose his position if city council adopts a motion of no-confidence against him.
The aldermen can appointed in two ways. Either as program council ("programcollege") or a mirror council ("afspiegelingscollege"). A program council based on a clear political program and a majority in the municipal legislative; a mirror council represents all (major) parties represents in the municipal legislative. Until 1970 all municipalities were mirror municipalities, since then and especially after the dualization of municipal politics most council of aldermen and mayor have become programmatic. Those executives often include two or more parties with ideological links. The local executive of Rotterdam in the years 2002 until 2006 for example included the Christian-democratic CDA, the liberal VVD and the locally based Leefbaar Rotterdam. The social-democratic PvdA, the second largest party of Rotterdam, was kept out of the executive because of ideological conflicts with Leefbaar Rotterdam. The same happened in city of Groningen, where a left wing executive was appointed on 26th of April, 2006. It consists of the PvdA, the socialist SP and the green Groenlinks.
