Bad news for the Netherlands: there’s a hole in the budget and with what Rutte will mend it remains to be seen.

€ 9,000,000,000 or €15,000,000,000? Nrc heads an analysis of macro economic advisory agency CPB’s gloomy budgetary forecast. The government will have to find €9bn if the Netherlands is going to conform to the 3 percent budget deficit rule imposed by Brussels. The paper writes that the amount may well climb to €15b because of the costs involved in cutting back.
Pretty please
This may well spell trouble for the cabinet, writes the paper. The prime minister needs political space in order to keep Wilders on his side. And so the Netherlands, instead demanding that other European countries keep their noses to the austerity grindstone, will have to go to Brussels begging, cap in hand: ‘Please, pretty please, just this once, can we not comply to the European rules?’
A €15bn cutback would mean more expensive health care, a zero increase of civil servants salaries and benefits and that still wouldn’t cover it, the paper writes.
Turning point
The turning point has come, Nrc thinks. Next week’s budget talks will no longer focus on what Brussels wants but on the Dutch government accord. Even VVD parliamentary chairman Stef Blok said the 3 % isn’t written in stone anymore and CPB boss Teulings’ warning that more austerity would harm the economy has gone from inopportune to very convenient indeed.
The change of focus will make it easier for Rutte whose silent partner Wilders is anything but silent on Europe. It’s going to be a balancing act between what Brussels wants and the anti-European rhetoric that is bound to increase in volume’, the paper concludes.
Pain
The Volkskrant asked a number of experts for their opinion. Economics professor Lans Bovenberg thinks the economy will right itself in time if Rutte reforms the three main dossiers: the labour market, housing and health care. But the 3 % shouldn’t be his objective: ‘there’s only so much pain people can take’, the Volkskrant quotes the professor.
Economist Sweder van Wijnbergen thinks the cabinet’s panic reaction to the news is ‘absurd’. ‘I’m not the only one to predict the budget deficit would go up to 4,5% next year. Everyone could see it coming.’, he tells the paper.
Irreconcilable differences
Eric Bartelsman, economics professor at the Vrije Universiteit thinks the cabinet will have to cite irreconcilable difference because there’s bound to be a break-up. ‘The VVD and PVV are the only parties who oppose reform while everybody else – the other parties, economists, employers, unions– says they are necessary. Even the Christian Democrats want reform. With such opposing views in one cabinet they are never going to solve the problem.’
No need for cutbacks
Public finance professor Harry Verbon tells the paper that there is absolutely no need for cutbacks: ‘Figures show that after 2013 the deficit will go down anyway so the cutbacks make no sense. It would be very bad for Europe. The southern countries are cutting back on spending and if we were to follow suit soon nobody will be buying anything in Europe anymore. What Rutte, and all the other leaders of rich European countries like Finland, Germany, Austria should do, is concentrate on measures to stimulate the economy.’
Scorn
Elsevier, in a comment, is astonished at the time scheduled for the debates next week. ‘Three weeks!’ it writes. ‘In Great Britain you could have three cabinets in that time.’ Elsevier thinks there are three things the cabinet can do to save its skin: ‘1. Keep to the 3% or you will be subjected to the eternal scorn of the left and Brussels. 2. Do not punish workers. Leave that to the left. 3. Make sure you have an accord after a week.’