The government has done a partial u-turn on its plans to slash spending on the security services by €34m a year in the wake of rising fears about the terrorist threat facing the Netherlands.

The AIVD will now face a budget cut of €9m a year because of the risk of terrorist attacks, ministers have decided.

‘The threat of an attack is taken seriously by the cabinet,’ home affairs minister Ronald Plasterk said. The number of people going to fight in Syria and the number of returnees requires ‘good supervision’, the minister said.

Borders

‘Cyber attacks are also on the rise and when we originally agreed to the cuts, the situation on the EU’s eastern borders was relatively quiet,’ Plasterk is quoted as saying by the Telegraaf.

The cuts will largely be made through an efficiency drive rather than on operational capacity, the minister said.

On Monday, the AIVD published a major report on the threat posed to the Netherlands by radical Islam.