The fall of the Dutch government--but what have they lost?

So the Dutch government collapsed—after more than 15 hours of talks that lasted until early this morning, and acrimonious exchanges throughout the week—over disagreements on whether or not to extend troop deployment in Afghanistan. The (former) ruling coalition was made up of Christian Democrats (center-right), Labour and the small Christian Union party.

To make it short, Jan Peter Balkenende,