‘Vague targets and lack of concrete measures’ sums up Friday’s disappointed reactions to the cabinet’s plans to spend €10bn on new initiatives and tax cuts.

‘The cabinet is using a lot of words but doing nothing,’ said employers’ organisation VNO-NCW. ‘This cabinet understands the problems but does not dare to tackle them,’ said green lobby group Natuur en Milieu.
In particular, commentators said the government should be putting far more effort into economic reforms and making sure the ‘summit’ between ministers, unions and employers actually took place.
‘This cabinet is the cabinet of small things,’ the Financieele Dagblad wrote in its editorial, pointing out that many of the targets are so vague that no-one will be able to say whether they have been achieved.
The plans have a largely social and sometimes moralistic tone, the Volkskrant points out. And, it argues, ministers were wrong to present their plans in a carefully-orchestrated ‘media show’ at the prime minister’s residence. Parliament was the proper location for the government’s plans to be unveiled.
The Telegraaf said the cabinet had done itself no favours by generating such high expectations. ‘Fine plans to cut bike theft aside’, the failure to agree an agenda for the long-awaited talks with unions and employers cast a shadow over the party, the paper said.