Building more affordable homes is the top priority for GroenLinks-PvdA, party leader Frans Timmermans said as the party launched its election manifesto on Monday.

The left-wing alliance wants to set up a €25 billion ”fund for the future” covering a range of projects to improve housing, tackle climate change and meet the new Nato defence spending target of 5% of GDP.

But top of the list is tackling the problems in the housing sector, with plans to build more homes, make social housing more widely available and phase out mortgage tax relief for homeowners.

“A good, affordable home is no longer a right, but a luxury,” party leader Frans Timmermans writes in the introduction to the 169-page draft manifesto, titled “A new start for the Netherlands”.

GL-PvdA wants to build 100,000 new homes a year with what it calls “the biggest investment programme in decades”. The outgoing cabinet set the same target, but developers added just 69,000 units last year and projections suggest it will not be met with current policies until 2027.

Mortgage tax relief

Extra capacity would be provided by reusing unused airport land for housing and reviving plans to buy out livestock farmers to bring down nitrogen pollution levels so that developers can obtain environmental permits for their projects.

GL-PvdA also wants to make social rental housing more accessible by raising the income limits so that two-thirds of all households are eligible.

Mortgage tax relief, which allows homeowners to offset their monthly payments against their income tax, would be phased out over 12 years. Timmermans acknowledged on Nieuwsuur that the policy would cause house prices to fall, but the exact impact still had to be calculated.

The manifesto marks a shift in priorities from two years ago, when the newly formed alliance of the Labour party (PvdA) and GroenLinks made climate change its top priority.

GL-PvdA wants the Netherlands to be fully carbon neutral by 2040, 10 years earlier than the European Union’s target date, and wants to reduce CO2 by 65% of 1990 levels by 2030, more than the 55% reduction required under Dutch law.

Cheap public transport

Public transport would be stimulated with plans for a €59 monthly ticket for unlimited travel.

But the party’s environmental policies are less ambitious than two years ago, partly because of the need to divert more public investment into defence, where GL-PvdA is committed to meeting the newly agreed Nato target of spending 3.5% of GDP on the armed forces and another 1.5% on critical infrastructure.

The two parties’ youth wings, Dwars (for GroenLinks) and the Young Socialists (PvdA) said the party should push harder for sustainability. “Industries that can’t become greener should disappear,” they said.

On the plans for more defence spending, they added: “Fixating ourselves on percentages and more weapons will not lead to more security.”

Timmermans said the ambitious spending plans would be funded by raising taxes on high earners and asset wealth, in contrast to parties such as the VVD, who want to cut budgets for social security and healthcare.

GL-PvdA said its plans were based on “solidarity” and ensuring that “the Netherlands works again for everyone” with ”a family doctor, a neighbourhood police officer and good childcare” for all.

Net migration

But the party has also tightened its policy on immigration, specifying a target figure in its manifesto for the first time. GL-PvdA says net migration should be between 40,000 and 60,000 a year, drawing on a report published last year that said “moderate growth” would see the population rise from 18 million to 20 million in the next 25 years.

Timmermans said refugee numbers should be limited by tighter controls at the EU’s external borders. He told Nieuwsuur: “We need to implement the European pact, which means we need to decide whether people have a right to asylum at the EU border.

“That said, when large-scale conflicts break out, people who are fleeing war and violence should be able to have a safe place in the Netherlands.”