The Dutch economy will perform better than other euro zone countries next year, with growth of 0.4%, the European Commission said on Monday.

The latest economic forecast from Brussels says that growth in the European Union as a whole is expected to slow from 1.4% this year to just 0.2% in 2009. The euro zone – covering the 15 countries that share the euro – will slow to just 0.1%.
The new EU forecasts come just days after the Dutch government admitted that growth in 2009 will be significantly lower than the 1.25% forecast in September when it announced its spending plans.
Following the weekly cabinet meeting on Friday, prime minister Jan Peter Balkenende and finance minister Wouter Bos warned that growth could even fall ‘towards zero’, the NRC reported.
And while the cabinet does not as yet expect to make cuts, there will be no room for extra expenditure next year, the ministers said. This means that if government spending rises, for example in the area of social services, cuts will have to be made to compensate, the paper says.
‘The Dutch will have to get used to the fact that it is not going well with the economy,’ Bos is quoted as saying in what is his most sombre prognosis to date.
Balkenende also confirmed that any profits made from the stakes the state has bought in financial services group Fortis, and the ABN Amro and ING banks will be used to lower national debt.