2020 budget: The good news show divides the Dutch papers

Was Tuesday’s budget a just division of prosperity or a spend-thrift cabinet making empty promises and storing up trouble for later? The Dutch papers are divided in their editorials and analyses.

In its editorial the NRC asks if the cabinet is courting trouble in order to fulfill its promise to finally let citizens share in the relative prosperity of the past few years.

‘The cabinet is letting go of the strict budget rules in place since 1994… partly to finance the pension and climate accords but also to make the people a present of billions… But it would not be the first time a projected increase in consumer spending power does not materialise,’ the NRC warns.

The paper also wonders what the cabinet’s vision of the country’s economic future is, ‘with the long-awaited investment fund that would give traction to it only existing on paper and with no indication of how the billions in it would be spent’.

Trouw looks ahead to the coming budget debates and points out that the cabinet has left the opposition without very much to complain about.

Nevertheless,  the illusive investment fund remains a political hot potato and pension cuts are on the cards, something the PvdA and GroenLinks are anxious to avoid, the paper says.

In addition, both opposition parties are also threatening to prevent a senate majority for the cabinet now that a €580m investment in education is not happening, Trouw states.

Expertise

In its editorial, the Volkskrant says the cabinet lacks not so much money or plans but the capability and expertise to carry them out.

The paper cites a long list of ‘nagging problems’ which have been dogging the government but which have not been solved, such as the IT chaos at the tax office, the increasing influence of the drugs mafia and the ‘bureaucratic rat king’ of Groningen in the wake of the earthquakes.

The paper warned the cabinet not to be ‘complacent’ but come up with ‘tangible achievements’.

Opportunistic

The Financieele Dagblad understands the need to please the middle class but fears it is an opportunistic pre-election courting of votes ‘just before an economic downturn and in the last full budget year of Rutte III.’ The next election will take place in 18 months time.

In addition, the proposed investment fund, ‘the missing link which would include businesses in this pact for the middle class’, lacks concrete content, the paper said.

The Telegraaf headline’s its front page ‘Things are still good (for the moment)’ on top of a photograph of the newly-bearded king Willem Alexander.

In its editorial, the paper too takes the theme of ‘too little too late’ and blames the low interest rate policy of the European Central Bank ‘to help southern European countries’ for squeezing pensions.

‘The ECB is independent but the Netherlands should take a political stance. This policy is seriously damaging the national interest,’ the paper said.