Mansveld Faces House

During the question hour on Tuesday, State Secretary Wilma Mansveld promised to come up with an alternative for duped travelers who are affected by the fact that the Fyra will not run anymore. D66 MP Stientje van Veldhoven was wondering why the State Secretary was caught by surprise by the decision of the Belgian Railways to abandon the Fyra. Mansveld describes the issue as "particularly serious and disappointing." For her it is paramount that the House must be fully informed, but "carefully and correct'. CDA MP Sander de Rouwe questioned her why the House didn’t receive all the reports then until now. Mansveld answered that the reports must be first validated juridically before they can be sent to the House but she expects that she can send them soon. Most important to Mansveld is, that there will be an hourly train riding over the HSL. However she couldn’t say yet when that will be the case. She didn’t say clearly that the Fyra, type V250, will never drive over the HSL again. She also didn’t exactly point out that the NS will loose the concession to use the HSL. PVV MP Machiel de Graaf asked Mansveld if the resigning chairman of the NS, Bert Meerstadt, will get a golden handshake. Mansveld couldn’t answer that because she was not informed about the exact agreements between the NS and Meerstadt. For D66 leader Alexander Pechtold it seemed, that the State Secretary had ‘remarkably few answers’ for the members of the House. After the question hour, the NS and the Ministry of Finance made public that the departing chairman will not get a golden handshake