Pro-diversity party has to repay €150,000 after budget reevaluation

The lower house of Dutch parliament is withholding almost 150 thousand euros this year on the money DENK receives to pay, for example, faction employees. The pro-diversity party received a double contribution last year and that is now being rectified, AD and NOS report.

Up until the parliamentary election in March last year, DENK founders Tunahan Kuzu and Selcuk Ozturk had parliamentary seats as the Kuzu/Ozturk Group. After the election, they fell under DENK.

Both DENK and the Kuzu/Ozturk Group received an annual contribution from the Tweede Kamer, the lower house of Dutch parliament, last year. The Kamer management, the Presidium, wants to rectify that this year.

According to the Presidium, DENK does not want to repay the 146 thousand euros they received double last year, so that amount will not be paid to the party this year. 

DENK is not happy with this state of affairs, calling it a "completely one-sided and completely unjust decision" that results in the party being "wrongfully financially disadvantaged". According to DENK, this is a political settlement by the other parties in the Tweede Kamer, because the Presidium is made up of those parties. 

The party believes that it is "insufficiently heard", according to AD. "For DENK it is becomes extremely difficult to pay its faction members and carry out its democratic duties", the party said in a press release.

Last week it also turned out that DENK did not spend a subsidy it received for a referendum well, AD reports. The party received the subsidy to campaign for the referendum on the new Intelligence and Security Law, which gives the Dutch intelligence services more capabilities to tap large amounts of telephone and internet data. But the party did not spend the money according to the rules, according to the newspaper. A committee is currently looking into this.