The cabinet is striving to prepare the country for the future, said prime minister Jan Peter Balkendende this afternoon in his budget day address to the nation.

To achieve this, government policy will focus on four areas: helping more people to find jobs, making people feel safer, increasing people’s respect for each other and reducing state regulations. Balkenende said the Netherlands is already in good shape, thanks not only to government policy, but also to the effort of people themselves.
The prime minister said that the hard measures his government has taken have resulted in 237,000 fewer benefit recipients, an achievement that has only been made once before over the past 40 years.