Prime minister Mark Rutte and finance minister Jan Kees de Jager were unable to satisfy parliament on Tuesday afternoon on questions about just how much money has been promised for the Greece bail-out and why Rutte made a mistake in the sums involved during a press conference. The debate will continue on Wednesday.

Rutte listened for two hours early on Tuesday afternoon to a barrage of questions from MPs but did no more than reiterate his apology for the mistake he made in July when announcing the agreed figures following the eurozone leaders’ meeting.
Dodging questions
According to Rutte, the European Commission was looking at the situation up to 2014 while he was using 2020 as the cut-off. The difference in money terms is €50bn.
He was also repeatedly asked how much the taxpayer would contribute to the total sum and how much would come from private sources such as banks. Questions he dodged.
He did say he wants a tough regime of automatic sanctions for countries not keeping to European financial rules, something he has discussed with other EU leaders. Whether this would mean forcing recalcitrant countries out of the euro he would not say.
All of which brought from Labour’s Ronald Plasterk the comment: ‘If you can’t convince them, confuse them.’
Complex terms
Rutte was followed by De Jager who said he would give as much information as possible, although the aid package for Greece has not yet been finalised.
He went on to overwhelm MPs, using complex and technical terms, abbreviations, huge sums and English phrases. He did not reply to the question: but how much will it cost the taxpayer?
He touched on the fact that the package lasts until 2020 with more bank money than expected, particularly after 2014. He also explained the height of the ceiling for the Dutch contribution to the EU emergency fund.
The liberal D66 led the way in asking for a further debate, saying Rutte did make a mistake in his calculations and that the government-bank ratio of contributions do not add up. The rest of the parties followed suit with the socialist SP saying there is still a smokescreen around the figures.