Rutte III

Martin van Rijn from opposition party PvdA was appointed to take over as Minister for Medical Care, Prime Minister Mark Rutte announced on Friday, NOS reports.

Van Rijn, who was a State Secretary of Public Health in the previous Rutte government, will take over from Bruno Bruins. He resigned on Thursday after collapsing from exhaustion during a parliamentary debate on Wednesday.

In the country's first national address by a prime minister in over 40 years, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte laid out three possible scenarios that affect how the coronavirus pandemic will impact the Netherlands, pledged his support for workers and all business owners, and asked that the country unite to prevent the situation from spiraling out of control. The preference, he said, is a scenario where the country spreads out the rate of infection as much as possible, and he emphasized that the country must take action together to prevent two more-dangerous scenarios from occurring.

The Dutch government is allocating 30 million euros for the purchase of electric shock weapons for the police. Equipping cops with tasers has been high on the police's wish list for some time, and they are now getting their way, RTL Nieuws reports.

Around 17 thousand police officers who may find themselves in a situation in which they have to defend themselves against violence will be equipped with a taser. Part of the 30 million euros will go towards purchasing these weapons, and part will go towards training police officers how to handle and use them.

The Dutch cabinet is considering a reversal of its policy of decentralizing youth care services following a harshly critical report from the Health and Youth Care Inspectorate. The report, produced with the Ministry of Justice and Security, said that staffing levels in the sector are far too low making it difficult or impossible for families to get help in dealing with either complex issues, or a multitude of issues.

A new forecast by Statistics Netherlands on the life expectancy of 65-year-old Netherlands residents shows that in 2025 they will still have around 20.75 years to live, half a week more than the previous forecast. The life expectancy is a month more in 2025 than in 2024.

The state retirement age is linked to these life expectancy figures. As the difference between the life expectancy in 2024 and 2025 is small at only a month, it seems unlikely that the retirement age will increase in 2025, according to NRC. Retirement age will reach the age of 67 for the first time in 2024. 

The Public Prosecutor submitted a list of 29 suspected Dutch jihadists that it wants to bring back from Syria to the Netherlands to face justice, the Ministry of Justice and Security confirmed to NRC. That is a significant increase from the 10 requests submitted earlier this year.

The Dutch government is establishing a fund next year where homeowners can borrow money to remove and replace their asbestos roof, State Secretary Stientje van Veldhoven of Infrastructure announced. She hopes that the fund will tempt homeowners to deal with this health risk in the short term, NOS reports

The government must allocate extra money to combat the teacher shortage and implement tax reductions for the elderly and people with a low income, according to the PvdA. If that does not happen, the party will vote against the government's tax plan and education budget, PvdA leader Lodewijk Asscher said to NOS. 

Increase corporate income tax and the tax on the wealthy to pay for higher wages and a lower workloads in the public sector, left-wing opposition parties GroenLinks, SP and PvdA proposed in a counter-budget to the national budget the Rutte III government presented on Tuesday. "We show that you can make different choices with the same money", SP leader Lilian Marijnessen said to NOS.

Any money left over in the government's budget should first be spent on raising the salaries of people in the public sector, addressing the housing shortage and getting more police officers on the street, according to a poll conducted by Ipsos on behalf of NOS for Budget Day 2019. Only once all that is done, should budget surpluses be used to pay off State debt, the respondents said.

The PvdA also wants to get rid of the student loan system and reintroduce the basic study grant, joining the call of Coalitie-Y - an initiative of the ChristenUnie and youth organization who want to take measures to give more certainty to the next generation of young people. A vast majority in parliament now supports this plan, NU.nl reports.