Cabinet still aims for majority budget support, Heinen says

The Dutch cabinet still believes it can win support from across the political spectrum for its annual budget, finance minister Eelco Heinen has said, a week before the plans are due to be sent off for review.

“I’m confident that will work out,” Heinen told reporters ahead of Friday’s cabinet meeting. “We’re now really in the final phase.” He said he believed the opposition parties whose votes are needed are moving closer together and “don’t differ that much from each other.”

Heinen, who stayed away from the opening days of talks with opposition leaders this week, is now holding his own discussions with the parties. The cabinet wants a deal in place by next Friday, August 28, when it plans to send the budget to the Council of State.

Left or right
The minority coalition of D66, VVD and CDA is 10 seats short of a majority in the lower house and holds less than a third of the seats in the senate, leaving it reliant on opposition votes.

Support from opposition party PRO, which has 20 seats, would give it a comfortable majority, while a deal with the far-right JA21, which has nine seats, would leave it one short and dependent on a third party.

PRO, JA21 and the orthodox Protestant SGP have all said the cabinet will eventually have to choose between a majority on the left or on the right. But Heinen has resisted that, backing a call this week by Christian-social ChristenUnie leader Mirjam Bikker for the parties to drop the left-right divide and judge the plans on their merits.

Welfare cuts
Talks with PRO, the most straightforward route to a majority, remain difficult. After a meeting on Thursday, the party’s finance spokesperson Luc Stultiens said he had seen little movement “and that will be needed if you want our support.”

PRO wants the cabinet to scrap €6.5 billion in planned cuts to social security and raise the money through higher taxes on wealth and corporations instead. Its position is backed by the unions, which have called a national public transport strike on September 9 in protest at the reforms.

JA21 and the SGP, which are working together, met ministers again on Friday morning, with the ChristenUnie due later in the day. The budget is set to be presented on Prinsjesdag, September 15.