After two weeks of heavy negotiations, the politics in the Hague have come to an easier mode. There was no fireworks in the House during the first day of the financial discussions.
The financial discussions in the House always come one week later than the general discussions about the Dutch National Budget.
European Commissioner Ollie Rehn (Economical Affairs and Euro) has lauded the Netherlands for the budget agreement, the agreement of government and opposition on the budget of 2014.
Rehn praised the Netherlands at the meeting of the Euro Group, the group of 17 Finance ministers of Europe, which was held in Luxembourg on Monday. He even advised the politicians at the other side of the Atlantic ‘to go Dutch’.
After ten days of negotiations, the government and D66, SGP and ChristenUnie have reached an agreement on the budget for 2014. What did they agree upon and how does the Netherlands responds to the agreement?
By total surprise GroenLinks has announced on Wednesday to stop with the negotiations to find a solution for the National Dutch Budget.
Bram van Ojik told in TV show Pauw and Witteman, that he didn’t see any progress and therefore decided to step out.
Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem of Finance has canceled his trip to the annual meeting of the IMF in Washington. Dijsselbloem was supposed to attend the meeting on Thursday and Friday but canceled the trip because of the negotiations with the opposition about the Dutch National Budget.
Dijsselbloem says that he has responsibilities to the international institution, but as of this moment he wants to solve the internal Dutch problems because that is now more important to him.
Prime Minister Mark Rutte and PvdA leader Diederik Samsom are very optimistic that a solution, to get a majority in the Senate, will be found in a few days.
The negotiations, this time without GroenLinks, continued on Wednesday. In the afternoon it were the financial specialists of the negotiation partners who met with the minister of Finance. In the evening the group leaders, the Prime Minister and the Vice Prime Minister joined the negotiations.
Following the budget discussions in the House of last week, Minister Dijsselbloem is talking this week with opposition parties to exchange some of the government plans with alternatives proposed by them.
