Home affairs minister Piet Hein Donner is prepared to ask the cabinet to sanction a pay rise of up to 0.6% for national government civil servants, the Financieele Dagblad reports on Wednesday, quoting union officials.

Donner is prepared to compromise if unions agree to a reduction in secondary benefits and redundancy regulations, the paper says.
At the moment, for example, national government officials who are threatened with redundancy do not have to accept work in local government or in the private sector instead. They also have wage guarantees.
The minister wants to harmonise these regulations across different departments and is prepared to drop his insistence on a pay freeze to achieve this.

Divided
Civil service unions are divided over the new proposal.
Talks on a new pay and conditions deal for government officials started in December. The unions have called for a 2% pay rise this year to offset the effect of inflation, currently running at around 2%.
The cabinet wants to cut €6.5bn in spending by cutting civil service jobs and transferring tasks to local government.
Both sides are due to meet again on June 22.