The coalition accord put together by four right and far-right parties is disastrous for the Netherlands, the head of the biggest opposition party said after the publication of the plans.

Frans Timmermans, a former EU commissioner and leader of the GroenLinks-PvdA alliance, said the plans will be paid for by making cuts in spending on healthcare and education, and the decision not to increase the minimum wage is “very bad news for working people”.

“People were promised that things would get better and the minimum wage would go up, but this is not happening,” he said. “Unemployment benefit (WW) will be cut and that means people’s financial security will decline if they lose their job.

“Civil service pay is being frozen when there is enough money to let their salaries rise with the economy. If your approach to financial security is all about the wallets of shareholders and directors, then you are undermining solidarity with the weakest in the Netherlands.”

In addition, the coalition’s approach to asylum and migration, he said, is based on “a lot of wishful thinking”.

“They say ‘we’ll go to Brussels because we want to spend less and we’ll go to Brussels because we don’t want to keep to the rules about nitrogen and we’ll go to Brussels and we don’t want to keep to the rules for asylum and migration’.

“You’d be a laughing stock in Brussels. You helped make those rules. You always ask other member states to stick to the rules but you don’t want to do that yourself. Honestly, it is not going to happen.”

If the parties press ahead regardless, they will have to deal with the legal implications, he said. “I wonder what it will mean if you deliberately stretch the letter of the law as far as you can and deliberately cross the boundary in the hope you can get away with it.”

Timmermans also declined to comment on rumours that former PvdA minister Ronald Plasterk has been tipped to take the prime minister’s role. “All four parties are keeping quiet about it and I’m going to follow suit and say nothing. As soon as there is a prime minister you will hear my comments.”

Hot air

Rob Jetten, leader of the liberal democratic party D66, described the plans as “hot air” and “built on sand”. The financial choices and their likely consequences are “extremely unclear,” he said, and the calculations need to be properly assessed to work out exactly what the impact on people will be.

Economic experts have already said, for example, that healthcare premiums will have to rise to pay for the cut in the own risk element in 2027.