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Parts of the Dutch government’s budget for next year have leaked ahead of its official presentation, and they show a cabinet making a series of concessions: more money to protect household spending power, a delay to a planned rise in healthcare costs, and a partial retreat on cuts to social security. The details emerged through RTL Nieuws, a day after a difficult agreement between the three coalition partners.
First, what Prinsjesdag is
For readers less familiar with the Dutch political calendar, the budget is revealed each year on Prinsjesdag, or “Little Princes’ Day”, which falls on the third Tuesday of September. This year it falls on the 15th. It is one of the set pieces of Dutch public life: the King travels through The Hague in a royal procession and delivers the Troonrede, the speech from the throne setting out the government’s plans, and the finance minister presents the national budget and the accompanying Miljoenennota, the government’s spending memorandum. Central to it all is the question of koopkracht, or purchasing power, how much ordinary households will actually be able to afford in the year ahead. Because the documents shape everyone’s finances, they are closely watched, and, as this year shows, they often leak in the days beforehand.
Why the mood is so tense this year
The leak lands in an unusually fraught political atmosphere, for several reasons. The government, led by Prime Minister Rob Jetten and made up of D66, the VVD and the CDA, is a minority coalition: it does not command a majority in parliament and therefore needs support from opposition parties to get its budget passed. That gives the opposition real leverage, and much of what has leaked reads as an attempt to win it over.
The timing is also charged. The country is heading for parliamentary elections at the end of October, which sharpens every disagreement, and the budget talks were reportedly bad-tempered even within the coalition itself. On top of that, a national strike is planned for 9 September, called by the trade union FNV against precisely the kind of social-security cuts the cabinet is now partly walking back. The government is, in other words, negotiating under pressure from its own partners, from the opposition it depends on, and from the street.
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What is in the leaked plans
Several concrete measures have emerged. The cabinet intends to postpone a planned increase in the healthcare deductible, the eigen risico, the amount people pay out of pocket for medical care before their insurance covers the rest. Purchasing power will be given a boost, though the leaked papers do not spell out exactly how.
On social security, the cabinet is bending to a wish shared across almost the entire opposition, and will not go ahead with reducing the level of unemployment benefit (WW). It is, however, sticking to a separate plan to shorten the maximum period someone can receive that benefit, from two years to one, while delaying that change by a year, to 2029. A move to accelerate the rise in the state pension age (AOW) has been dropped altogether, and the cabinet has now confirmed that in writing.
To help pay for the concessions, part of the bill will fall on higher earners, who face a lower labour tax credit, expected to raise 750 million euros, though the income level at which this begins is not yet clear. There will also be a painful measure for motorists: after years of postponement, the cabinet now intends to phase out the discount on diesel and petrol, fuel excise duties that were cut in 2022 to shield people from high prices. Restoring them would recover around 750 million euros for the treasury. Households that use a lot of water will pay more too, through a rise in the tap-water tax.
What is still unresolved, and what critics say
Two big gaps remain. The leaked documents do not reveal the outcome of the fight over “Box 3”, the taxation of savings and investments, which was the hardest part of the coalition negotiations. The VVD has wanted to spare wealthy people and investors more than its partners D66 and the CDA, and what was actually agreed is not apparent from the leak. Exactly how the whole package is funded is also not yet fully clear.
Nor will the softening of the cuts be enough to satisfy everyone. Trade unions and left-wing opposition parties want no cuts to social security at all, and substantial ones remain on the table. The cabinet still intends to abolish the so-called IVA benefit for people declared fully unfit for work, a change that could cost those affected thousands of euros a year. That, and the measures that survive, mean the 9 September strike and the political battle over the budget are likely to go ahead regardless.
What happens next
Because these are leaked draft measures, they are not the final word. The complete budget, with the figures and the missing pieces, will be presented on Prinsjesdag on 15 September, after which parliament debates it. But the leak offers an early and revealing glimpse of a minority government trying to thread a needle, protecting household spending power and easing its most contested cuts enough to win opposition votes, while still finding the money to pay for it, all in the shadow of a strike and an approaching election.