The new government’s budget deficit is set to be twice as high as earlier thought, sources close to the cabinet have told the Financieele Dagblad. The sources say finance minister will announce in his spring statement next month that the deficit is closer to 0.5% or 0.6% of GDP, not 0.2% as originally thought.

That is the equivalent of a €2bn shortfall, the paper said.
Sources told the paper the shortfall was due to unsecured spending by ministers from the previous cabinet and ‘skeletons in the cupboard’ left by Bos’s predecessor Gerrit Zalm.