The Netherlands has an ‘unique opportunity’ to tackle excessive executive pay, finance minister Wouter Bos said during an emergency parliamentary debate on Wednesday night.

The debate was called by opposition MPs who accused the cabinet of trading off controversial plans to reform redundancy law against measures to deal with executive salaries. Ministers strongly deny any deal.
On Tuesday social affairs minister Piet Hein Donner agreed to put his redundancy law reform, which was threatening to split the cabinet, on ice.
On Wednesday it emerged that Bos had agreed to scrap plans to end tax breaks on pension premiums for people earning over €185,000. A tax increase on homes valued at over €1m is also now to be phased in over seven years from 2010.
The finance ministry will now draw up new proposals to increase tax on golden handshakes and other executive perks. A majority of MPs support the introduction of new measures to curb top-level pay.