Summer vacation is over; Time for new Dutch government to get to work
Summer vacation is over for national politics, and the Schoof I Cabinet, which took office shortly before the summer holidays started, can really start working. The first big task is the national budget, presented on Budget Day on the third Tuesday in September. Presenting a balanced budget will be quite the puzzle for the PVV, VVD, NSC, and BBB coalition amid billions of euros in financial setbacks, a demanding opposition, and working on the government program, NU.nl reports.
Behind the scenes, civil servants have been working on the budget for next year for months. But it only really takes shape after the Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis (CPB) publishes its figures on the Dutch economy and purchasing power. This Macro Economic Outlook, which serves as the basis for the 2025 budget, is expected on Friday.
For the rest of this month, the government can turn the knobs to ensure the topics they care about get funded while other things don’t fall by the wayside. The economic outlook also determines how many additional requests from parliament the new government can agree to. And there are plenty of them. In practice, this will be the first test of Prime Minister Dick Schoof’s promised outstretched hand to the opposition.
The new government also faces several massive financial setbacks. The biggest one is the box 3 ruling by the Supreme Court in June, which states that the government must compensate people who paid too high taxes on their assets, like savings, shares, and real estate, since 2017. The Ministry of Finance still has to draw up the exact picture but estimates additional costs of around 4 billion euros.
There is also the failed sale of the German part of TenneT, reversed cutbacks in healthcare, and additional costs for compensating the benefits scandal and emergency shelter for asylum seekers.
In the meantime, the Schoof Cabinet is also still working out its government program, which will also require big decisions from the new Ministers. The first post-vacation Council of Ministers on Friday is expected to be a long and intense one.
