The four coalition parties are meeting again for talks on the spring financial statement on Sunday, after failing to meet last Friday’s original deadline.
The parties have not yet managed to determine how much financial room they have for new policy and how much has to be cut from existing budgets.
“We are hard at work with the financial puzzle,” prime minister Dick Schoof told reporters on Friday after the weekly cabinet meeting. “It is pretty complicated.”
The four parties – the far-right PVV, pro-countryside BBB, NSC, and the VVD – have been in talks with finance minister Eelco Heinen for several weeks, but they have yet to get down to real negotiations, insiders say.
Much depends on Heinen, a minister on behalf of the VVD, who is keen to maintain strict budgetary discipline. The NSC and BBB say the minister is being too rigid and argue that extra tax income from economic growth could be used for new spending plans.
However, Heinen says that any windfalls must be used to reduce the national debt, not for additional spending.
This impasse means the four parties have not yet agreed on how much money is available or what extra savings may need to be made. The PVV, hard hit in recent opinion polls, wants to spend billions on fulfilling its election promises, such as lowering rents, reducing value-added tax on groceries, and cutting energy taxes.
The BBB wants to invest billions in resolving the nitrogen impasse and buying out farmers, while the VVD wants to increase spending on defense and reduce the tax burden on energy-intensive industries.
Immigration minister Marjolein Faber has her own wish list, including extra money to provide accommodation for refugees, while prisons minister Ingrid Coenradie wants to expand prison capacity.
Other problems which need to be solved are the Box 3 asset tax chaos.
The plans must be finalised by coming Thursday so that the macroeconomic forecasting agency CPB can assess the financial soundness of the plans, and the Council of State can carry out its review.
Brussels
The plans then have to be submitted to the European Commission by May 1 at the latest.
Schoof did not respond to questions on Friday about what would happen if the deadline is not met.
RTL political commentator Frits Wester said if the cabinet does not reach agreement by Thursday, this coalition is not in a fit state to run the country. “They know themselves what is at stake.”
