The cabinet is to cut government spending by a structural 10%, despite giving civil servants orders to identify budget cuts of 20%, the Financieele Dagblad reports on Friday.

Around half of the proposals for €35bn-worth of cuts worked out by the 20 committees set up in September will go ahead, the paper quotes social affairs minister Piet Hein Donner as saying.
When we asked the work groups to make suggestions we said give us more ideas, Donner said. ‘If they come up with [cuts] of exactly 10%, we have no alternatives [to chose from],’ the paper quoted him as saying.
Taking the effect on tax receipts into account, the total cuts now needed are in the region of €25bn, the paper says.
The final proposals will be made in April. Some ministries are on the offensive against the cuts, the paper says.