Hope, guts and pride: The new right-wing Dutch coalition plans - DutchNews.nl (2024)

The agreement put together by the four coalition parties over the past five months covers 26 pages and contains what the new partners say is the headline strategy.

Given the titleHoop, lef en trots(hope, guts, and pride) the document is supposed to pave the way for ministers to flesh out actual policy and how the new strategy will be implemented. Nevertheless, it contains a string of detailed plans covering 10 key areas including immigration, the economy, public safety andboosting individual financial security.

“Whether we are talking about feeling secure about the future, healthcare, money in your pocket or the availability of sufficient housing, we have big ambitions,” the four parties say in the introduction. “We also want to reverse the much too high influx of refugees and immigrants. We want farmers, market gardeners and fishermen to have a future again.

Here are some of the main points:

Getting to grips with asylum and migration

• Legislation to ensure all local authorities take their fair share of refugees will be scrapped
• Refugees will no longer be given permanent residency permits
• Refugees who fail in their applications will be “deported” as much as possible, including “forced deportations”
• Refugees who are granted the right to stay will no longer have priority to get social housing
• The automatic right to bring in family members will be scrapped
• The coalition will ask the European Commission for an opt-out on European refugee and migration policy and wants to bring in more border checks.
• Extra rules will be brought in covering foreign workers and the labour inspectorate will have more powers to check up on the use of non-EU workers
  
• More limits will be imposed on foreign student numbers, by boosting the number of Dutch courses, bringing in maximum numbers for foreign studentsand increasing university fees for non-EU students
  
• Knowledge of the Holocaust will become a compulsory part of the integration process
  
• It will only be possible to become Dutch after 10 years and if legally possible, people will have to give up their foreign nationality to do so
• Level B1 will become the standard language demand for naturalisation

Spending power and social security

• Theownrisk element in healthcare will be halved from 2027 to €165
• Tax on income will be cut “for example by introducing a new income tax bracket”
• More measures to stimulate the use of permanent job contracts
• Help with dealing with debts to be improved
• Organisedchildcare to become “virtually free”
• Home owners with solar panels will no longer be able to deduct the energy they feed back into the national grid from their energy bills from 2027
• Unemployment benefit (WW) will be cut from two years to 18 months

Housing, infrastructure and public transport

• The Netherlands needs to build 100,000 new homes a year and this will be done by making more land available, including the “extra street” concept for all towns and villages
• Social housing rent increases will be limited to inflation from 2026 and 30% of all new construction must be rent-controlled
• No changes planned to mortgage tax relief and there will be a limit to local tax increases for home owners
• Measures will be taken to encourage the development of more rental property and to encourage private landlords
• New legal anchors will be introduced to make it possible to subdivide existing homes into flats, boost generation-wide living and flat sharing, as well as repurposing existing buildings
• Where possible, 130 kph will become the standard speed on the roads
• Public transport will be strengthened, particularly in rural areas, and the train link between Groningen and Lelystad will go ahead

Farming, fishing, food security and nature

• The coalition will do “all it can” to adapt European farming regulations with regard to nitrogen-based pollution and enriching Natura 2000 protected areas
• The Netherlands will no longer pursue a more ambitious strategy to improve nature than the rest of Europe
• There will be no compulsory measures to reduce the amount of livestock or compulsory purchase orders for farms
• Cheap “red diesel”, scrapped in 2013, will be brought back for farmers

Energy and climate

• The coalition will keep to current targets and “only develop alternative policies if we don’t reach those targets”
• The climate fund, set up to finance measures to improve the climate will remain in place but will be cut by €1.2 billion
• The Netherlands will develop four rather than two new nuclear power stations
• Heat pumps will not be compulsory and subsidies for electric cars will be scrapped in 2025
  
• No more gas will be produced from the Groningen fields but drilling will be scaled up in the North Sea
• Wind turbines will be placed offshore as much as possible, taking fishing fleet needs into account
• Subsidies for generating green energy will be cut by €1 billion a year

Public services, healthcare and education

• Emphasis on improving front line car services, including family doctors, community nursing and home care
• Efforts to be made to make working in the care sector more attractive by giving workers more autonomy and career prospects and cutting red tape. However, the budget to do this is being cut
• Cuts will be made in spending on public health
• In education, teaching methods “must be proved to be effective and politically neutral”
• Funding for creating broad streams in the first years of secondary school will be scrapped
• The use of English should be reduced at universities and colleges
• No changes on medical ethical issues such as abortion and euthanasia

Good governance and a strong constitution

• The coalition will start work on a new electoral system for the lower house of parliament which will “strengthen the link between the regions and their elected representatives”
• The new system should be ready for the next general election
• Work will start on setting up a constitutional court where legal changes would be assessed. This is one of the main demands made by the NSC’s Pieter Omtzigt
• A ”right to make a mistake” legislation will be drawn up to make sure that “a single mistake cannot drive people deep into problems”. Government debt collection fees will be slashed
• Central government will employ fewer civil servants and consultants
• Spending on public broadcasting system will be cut by €100 million
• Value added tax on hotel stays will go back to 21% but not on campsites
• Value added tax will rise on the cultural sector, such as theatre and museums, but not cinemas and amusem*nt parks

National security

• Tougher approach to dealing with organised crime including more rights to sequester criminal assets
• Tougher approach towards money laundering
• Tougher sentences for terrorism and serious violent and sex crimes
• Maximum sentences for youth criminality will be increased
• The minimum age to be a sex worker will be increased to 21
• There will be a “sharper” division made between (peaceful) demonstrations and disruptive acts, including threats against others public violence “will not be tolerated”
• The definition of membership of a terrorist organisation will be widened and the maximum sentence for involvement in terrorism increased to 20 years.

International security

• “The Netherlands will continue to support Ukraine against Russian aggression politically, militarily, financially and morally”
• The Nato defence spending norm of 2% of GDP will be anchored law
• Research will start on the logistics of moving the Dutch embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem
• “The Netherlands will be extremely critical about further expansion of the EU and no concessions will be done to the criteria for membership”
• Cuts in spending on development aid to reach €2.4 bn a year from 2027

Government finances, economy and business climate

• The business climate must be improved and some of the recent tax increases will be cut. That includes the increase in energy taxes and the tax on share buybacks
• In total, the four parties have agreed spending cuts of €14.7 billion a year and “spend” the same in tax cuts and investments
• The new government will ensure that the budget deficit remains a maximum of 2.8% of GDP and the national debt will remain below 60%
• If it appears as if the 3% EMU norm is about to be breached, then “additional measures” will be taken, starting with spending cuts
• The tax on gambling will go up from 30.5% to 37.8%

More to follow