Left-wing party efforts to write ‘alternative budget’ collapse

Much-heralded plans by the main centre-left parties in parliament to write an alternative budget for next year have collapsed after just one day, the Volkskrant claims on Thursday.

The Liberal democrats D66, who were part of the initiative, issued a statement on Wednesday saying that the Labour and Socialist party financial experts were no longer ‘spokesmen’ for D66 and that D66 did not wish to be associated with a ‘socialist path’.
D66 sources told the Telegraaf the differences between the Liberal democrats and socialists are so great that it would be very difficult to reach any agreement.
Alliance
Labour’s finance spokesman Ronald Plasterk told the paper it had not been his ambition to draw up an alternative budget. Instead the parties would together come up with alternative ways of cutting government spending by €3.2bn, he said.
The paper says the left-wing green party GroenLinks is also unhappy at the ‘over enthusiasm’ for the joint plan from Labour and the SP.
The alternative budget plan had been seen by some as an indication of what might happen if these parties were involved in discussions on forming a new government.