The cabinet is blackmailing employers and workers by coupling a delay in raising value-added tax to reducing unemployment benefit premiums, the Telegraaf quotes employer organisations as saying.

On Thursday it emerged that finance minister Wouter Bos wants to postpone the tax rise to 2010 because of its effect on spending power. But this should not mean the planned cut in jobless premiums should also be delayed, the paper quotes Bernard Wientjes of the VNO-NCW as saying.
‘Unemployment premiums are paid by workers and employers. That money is ours. The cabinet is wrongly using it as a pay-off,’ Wientjes told the paper.