You could be forgiven for thinking the government has suddenly woken up after being in a deep sleep, writes DutchNews.nl editor Robin Pascoe.

It has been a hectic few weeks. Plan after plan, spending-cut package after spending-cut package and strategy document after stategy document are now rolling off the presses at high speed.
€1bn off defence spending – leading to one in six job losses, €1bn off health insurance provisions, €200m off the arts and culture budget, a radical overhaul of the personal care budget system so that nearly 120,000 people will have no say in the help they get, the decentralisation of youth and handicapped care – portrayed as a strategy shift which will also happen to generate savings of €700m. The list goes on.
Timing
So why all this sudden activity? It is partly to do with timing. The general election might have been a year ago, but the new government was only sworn in in October, and it takes time to settle in and get adjusted.
Plans outlined in the coalition agreement have to be fleshed out and revised before they can be made public.
The Netherlands is also a country of compromise. This means all sorts of other groups have to be consulted about government policy. As the Volkskrant put it earlier this week: local councils, unions, discussion forums, umbrella groups, hospitals, health insurers, cultural groups all have to have their say in a polder economy.
Going public
But once the plans have been finalised, it is time to go public – even if there is no behind-the-scenes agreement.
It is in the public forum that the government can start throwing its weight around. Witness home affairs minister Piet Hein Donner and the way he told local councils they would regret voting down part of his decentralised government plans.
It is also only by going public that the government can assess public opinion and the weight of the political opossion to its plans.
2015
But the main reason for the sudden flurry of activity is that time is pressing. The government has pledged to slash spending by €18bn by 2015, in order to get its finances back under control. And that means lots of cuts will have to come into effect next year if they are to have the proper effect.
Given the time constraints, the government has until July and the start of the summer recess to set the pace and win agreement on more controversial issues – not to mention conclude discussions on the 2012 budget, which will be presented in September.
Wilders

In addition, all the plans which have been published so far have involved the coalition’s alliance partner, the PVV and its leader Geert Wilders.
But when it comes to the budget and new policy, PVV support cannot necessarily be guaranteed. So you can also expect quite a lot of testing the water over the next few weeks as well.
Ministers will mention little plans they have in the press, MPs will get angry or approve and the plan will either disappear ignominiously or reappear on the third Tuesday in September.
This means there is a lot more to come over the next few weeks.