Timmermans formally announced his candidacy to lead the ticket for the Labour and Green Left parties – which are joining forces – in a bid to stem a decline in support for left-leaning parties.

“This morning I told the Labour and Green Left parties that I would love to be a candidate to lead them in the next elections,” Timmermans said on national Dutch television.

“I want to become Prime Minister because I think we can do politics differently than in recent years, that we can create a more just society, in which the market serves the people and not the other way around.”

An EU commission spokesman declined to comment on his possible departure, first reported by the Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant.

Timmermans, 62, serves as the European Commission’s vice-president, and is in charge of the EU’s Green Deal – its wide-ranging package of policies on climate change and the environment.

He was expected to leave his EU post before the autumn to join campaigning in the Netherlands. His current post would generally be filled by another Dutch national.

He is also a well-known figure in the Netherlands, having served as foreign minister in 2012-2014 in Rutte’s previous cabinet.

Timmermans, a native of the southern Dutch province of Limburg who has spent nearly a decade in Brussels, is standing in the first election since 2006 in which Rutte will not be leading his conservative VVD party.

Timmermans had been tipped as a top candidate to lead the Dutch parties following his campaign for European social democrats in the 2019 European election, which was widely regarded as a success.

Timmermans, who speaks English, German, French, Italian, and Russian in addition to his native Dutch, is known as a skilled negotiator during international climate negotiations and his departure from EU politics will cause shockwaves.

How well he may perform in Dutch politics is an open question, but a poll published today indicated that 39% of Dutch voters said they trusted him to lead the next government.