New Finance Minister Henin warns: ‘The money is gone’

Finance Minister Eelco Heinen warned that the new cabinet would not have any financial wiggle room for new policies while it worked on more detailed sectoral plans.

This summer, ministers and their teams will be reinforcing their Basic Protocol The four right-wing parties to form a new government reached an agreement before the budget was announced in September.

However, “the money has run out,” Henin said after the last cabinet meeting before recess on Friday. “I think the message is clear, unless you can find the money in your own budget, there is no money to implement additional policies.”

The funding shortfall also raises questions about the viability of the new government’s plans and the billions of euros set aside for tax cuts. “I won’t rule anything out,” Henin said. However, he said he had received many requests for additional funds and “rejected them all.”

The government agreement presented in May sets out the basis of the government’s plan for the next three and a half years, but the details are left to ministers to work out.

For example, the agreement includes €1 billion in savings on refugee spending, but does not spell out how this will be achieved. The same is true of the projected cuts to spending on international students.

Macroeconomic Forecasting Agency CPB has stated Joint agreement between PVV, VVD and NSC and BBB to a large extent made up Ambition rather than actual strategy.

The report noted that while health and social security spending will increase, government spending on education, public services and development aid will decrease. and Climate policy.

It also said a plan to cut civil service numbers by 22% was “not feasible” as long as the parties had not decided which jobs to eliminate, and said a reduction in the Netherlands’ EU contributions “cannot be imposed unilaterally”.

Prime Minister Dick Schoof is giving ministers up to two weeks’ holiday before getting back to work in earnest.