More than half the traffic fines handed out to members of the foreign diplomatic corps don’t get paid and the total debt has reached over €500,000 since 2009, website nu.nl reports.

Figures from the traffic fine administration agency CJIB show diplomats were fined 4,056 times for breaking traffic laws in 2012 with a total bill of almost €290,000. Of that, €141,755 is still outstanding, nu.nl says.

Last year, justice minister Ivo Opstelten said the foreign ministry would exert greater diplomatic pressure to ensure fines are paid but there appears to have been little impact, nu.nl said.

Naming and shaming

MPs are now calling for more action, including the ‘naming and shaming’ of countries whose diplomats don’t pay their fines.

And the VVD is suggesting development aid to countries which don’t pay their bills should be cut by the equivalent amount. ‘Most countries which are guilty of this are that sort of country,’ VVD parliamentarian Ard van de Steur is quoted as saying.

The Socialist Party says a special fund should be set up to compensate companies and services which do not get paid by embassies and their staff.

This is an ‘unmanageable phenomenon,’ MP Harry van Bommel is quoted as saying. The problem goes further than non-payment of traffic fines, he said. ‘We are talking about big bills which don’t get paid,’ he told nu.nl. ‘Normally in the Netherlands, this is treated as a crime.’