With politicians still spluttering about Geert Wilders’ performance during the first budget day debate, the second was, on the whole, a more dignified affair albeit that most politicians wanted the unruly politician brought to task as a matter of priority. Prime minister Mark Rutte wasn’t having any of it. ‘Yesterday was incredibly annoying, it was all people could talk about’ is all he would say about the subject before moving on to more important matters.

Just before he could do so Wilders once again told his fellow politicians that they could all ‘climb a tree’ as far as he was concerned -‘I was pictured as a racist and an extremist’, he complained – quite forgetting that the cabinet he supports is, in the words of Partij voor de Dieren leader Marianne Thieme ‘destroying a green area the size of Utrecht’ and the country may face a shortage of trees for politicians to climb.
The prime minister ducked and dived on most subjects and was at no point hemmed in by the opposition. He did however concede a point to PvdA leader Job Cohen who accused him of heaping cut after cut on the heads of low income families. ‘In 2012 the spending power of some 90,000 families, 10,000 of whom are on a minimum income, will go down by five percent’, Rutte said. ‘Most measures will come into effect from 2013 and that may lead to an accumulation, as Mr Cohen rightly says. We will have a good look at how the balance is struck for 2013 and after.’
Greece and Brussels
Well into the debate Geert Wilders asked his first question, one that is near to his heart. ‘How much confidence does the prime minister still have in Greece. Shouldn’t Greece leave the euro?’ ‘That’s for the experts to decide, like the IMF, not individual countries’, Rutte replied.
Wilders also wanted to know if there was a plan B in case Greece wanted to leave the euro but was sent away with a flea in his ear. Rutte who thinks Greece will honour its commitments said his government was ‘always looking at plans B, C and D. But it wouldn’t be wise to elaborate on these. That’s the way it is.’
To a question from GroenLinks leader Jolande Sap and D66 leader Alexander Pechtold about the desirability of having an EU commissioner handling an international budget and consequently handing over some of the country’s sovereignty, Rutte answered: ‘Problems are not solved the moment you hand over all power to the Brussels bureaucracy. At least here you can call Maxime Verhagen before parliament and check the figures.’
Mosque
In another tweak of his alliance partner’s nose when the subject of Moroccan street crime came up he said that ‘young Moroccans are over represented in the figures but they are usually not the ones who visit the mosque. In that respect it is not a very wise move to discourage Islamisation of the Netherlands.’ Wilders’ proposal to have a referendum on a minaret ban was rejected.
Rutte said he was expecting a decrease of the influx of immigrants ‘not as a goal but as a result of the proposed measures.’ D66 leader Alexander Pechtold commented that what the country is grappling with is not so much ‘mass immigration but mass hysteria.’
Health and education
The SP’s Emile Roemer again accused the prime minister of hiking up health care costs to an unacceptable degree. ‘Dental treatment could cost as much as €600, beyond most families’ reach’, he said. Rutte countered by saying that the SP would let health care costs grow to an unsustainable height which Roemer denied vehemently only to be asked by a pained prime minster to stop interrupting.
Pechtold said the prime minister broke an election promise by not investing more in education. Rutte pointed to the 18bn austerity packet and said the quality of education not only depends on the amount of money spent on it. He was, however, cornered by Sap who wanted to know what the cabinet is planning to do about the lack of teachers. ‘A difficult problem but one we will tackle’, he said.
Get real man!
About Turkey Rutte said ‘We are against the rhetoric employed about Turkey. Turkey is a Nato ally and I wish to distance myself from the term ‘Islamic monkey’ employed by the PVV.’ This caused a rush to the microphone from Wilders who cried: ‘Get real man, that was part of an expression.’ Rutte, needled, bit back: ‘You get real man! You don’t call the prime minister of Turkey a monkey!’
The outburst once again brought to the fore the tone of Wilders’ input. Rutte refused to demand an apology and preferred to continue with the debate, not a stance that earned him the respect of his coalition partner Van Haersma Buma who called Wilders’ words ‘against all common decency’.
Beyond the budget
GroenLinks asked whether foreign aid would suffer if new cutbacks proved to be necessary. Rutte said he didn’t think so but is was the first time the opposition asked what might happen to the budget if 18nb wasn’t enough, a question that showed how out of date the proposals already are.
The prime minister’s closing words before a much awaited dinner were ‘The budget aims for a smaller government apparatus which doesn’t hinder business and promotes growth. The Netherlands wants to be a world leader. We want it to emerge from the crisis a more prosperous and safer country. This cabinet is convinced that the social cohesion of society is best served when citizens are given space and responsibility and are free to associate with others. This is fundamental to every measure we will discuss with parliament in the coming days.’