Police boycotts cost treasury €70m in lost fines, Moped ticketing down 75 pct.

The police protests for a better collective bargaining agreement has cost the treasury at least 70 million euros in uncollected fines. For nearly eight months, police officers have only been writing fines for serious offenses. The decrease can clearly be seen in fines issued for "souped-up" mopeds and scooters, which is down 75 percent. Figures from the Central Collection Agency show that some 4 thousand fines were issued for mopeds and scooters whose engine's power and efficiency has been increased, compared to 19,902 in 2014, NU reports. National Police spokesperson Remco Gerretsen believes this decrease can definitely be attributed to the police actions. "Wee see a decline in the number of fines in all areas", he said to NU. Gerrit van de Kamp, chairman of police union ACP, gave a similar statement to newspaper AD. "officers handed out significantly fewer fines for 239 days. Especially in traffic, but also in the hospitality industry. That adds up", he said. Geert Priem, chairman of police union ANPV, thinks that this police action could eventually cost the treasury some 100 million euros. He estimates that the collective bargaining protests cost about 400 thousand euros a day. The Ministry of Security and Justice will only release an assessment on the damage in January, and can not yet say how much revenue has been lost, according to AD. The police protests were put on hold last week after Security and Justice Minister Ard van der Steur reopened the contract negotiations.