Eelco Heinen. Photo: Martijn Beekman
The new cabinet does not have any financial leeway to bring in new policies, finance minister Eelco Heinen has warned, as work starts on putting together more detailed ministry plans.
Over the summer, ministers and their teams will flesh out the bare bones agreement reached between the four right-wing parties which have formed a new government, ahead of the presentation in the run-up to the September budget.
However, “the money has been spent”, Heinen said on Friday after the last cabinet meeting before the recess. “I think the message is clear that there is no money for additional policies unless you can find it in your own budgets.”
The shortage of cash has also raised questions about the feasibility of the new government’s plans and the billions of euros that have been allocated for tax cuts. “I am not ruling anything out,” said Heinen. Nevertheless, he said, he is receiving a lot of requests for extra cash and is “rejecting all of them.”
The government agreement presented in May laid out the basis of the government’s plans for the coming 3.5 years, but the details have been left to the individual ministers to work out.
For example, the agreement includes €1 billion in savings on spending on refugees but has not said anything about how this will be generated. The same applies to forecast cuts in spending on international students.
The macro-economic forecasting agency CPB has already said the coalition agreement put together by the PVV, VVD, NSC and BBB is largely made up of ambitions rather than actual strategy.
It points out that while spending on healthcare and social security will rise, the government will put less money into education, public services, development aid and climate policy.
It also described the plan to cut the civil service by 22% as “not plausible” as long as the parties have not decided what work will be scrapped and says lowering the Dutch contributions to the EU “cannot be forced through unilaterally”.
Prime minister Dick Schoof has given ministers a maximum of two weeks off before getting down to work in earnest.
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