Dutch Press Review Friday 27 April 2012
The accord on cuts to bring the 2013 budget deficit down to the European Union limit of three percent of GDP is today’s big, big news: the papers chew over the political fallout of the last-minute deal. A poem is cut from next Friday’s National Remembrance Day ceremony and there’s a bonus trick.
Just in the nick of time
“Historic Accord”, proclaims this morning’s AD, joining the chorus of papers heralding the deal done by the outgoing minority government coalition with three opposition parties.
The package of cuts and reforms to reduce the 2013 Dutch budget deficit commands a slim majority in parliament and comes just in time to meet the EU deadline of 30 April.
AD reminds us that the outgoing minority coalition of VVD conservatives and Christian Democrats spent “35 days” in tortuous talks with the PVV Freedom Party on a similar package of cuts.
Now the coalition has managed to clinch a last-minute deal with Green Left, the D66 democrats and the small Christian Union party in under “two days”.
This morning’s nrc.next says the accord was down to “old-fashioned” Dutch politics – “searching for compromise in corridors”. It praises outgoing Finance Minister Jan Kees de Jager for his marathon two days of cross-party negotiations.
It also praises Green Left leader Jolande Sap for risking the wrath of her left-wing rank and file in signing up to the deal, which will hit lower and middle incomes. It points out, though, that she was able to insist that many cuts opposed by her party were scrapped.
The paper also says PVV Freedom Party leader Geert Wilders played his part in the drama. It blames his intransigence and insistence on populist measures, such as cuts to development aid, for drawing out the original government talks. It says politicians in The Hague were so pleased to be rid of the PVV stranglehold that they were all the more eager to clinch a deal before the EU deadline expired.
Labour sidelined?
Trouw calls the last-minute cross-party accord on cuts to bring the 2013 budget deficit down to the EU limit “a unique way out of the crisis”. The paper says it marks the highpoint of Green Left leader Jolande Sap’s career so far.
She put a positive spin on her agreement to the raft of cutbacks by highlighting that many right-wing measures had been dropped from the package. She said it marked “the end of the right-wing wind which has been blowing through the Netherlands”.
“Everyone pays,” thinks De Telegraaf, pointing out that both citizens and businesses will have to cough up the 12 billion euros’ worth of savings contained in the package of reforms and cutbacks.
De Telegraaf sees the agreement of the outgoing government and smaller opposition parties as “sidelining” the biggest opposition party, Labour, which wasn’t willing to sign up to the deal because of the painful cutbacks it contained. The paper reckons relations between political parties on the left will have been soured by what’s happened.
That bitterness has already surfaced, thinks de Volkskrant, asking whether Labour “walked out or was shut out” of the deal. “What were we supposed to do?” asks one Labour bigwig. “Kick open the door? […] We weren’t welcome [at the talks]” - despite Labour apparently offering last minute compromises on its position.
De Volkskrant reports that Labour has now gone on a pre-election offensive, calling the deal “a continuation of the right-wing government programme” and complaining that the “pain” of the cuts is not equally divided between rich and poor.
Remembrance poem
De Volkskrant devotes seven pages to the new cuts accord. Its first story on page eight concerns the annual National Remembrance Day ceremony in Amsterdam next Friday, 4 May. The event honours the memory of all civilians and soldiers who have lost their lives in conflicts and peace missions from the Second World War to the present day. Queen Beatrix and members of the government and armed forces attend, laying wreaths during the ceremony.
Every year, school children compete in a Remembrance Day poetry competition. The winning poem is read out at the Amsterdam ceremony by the youngster who wrote it. This year, 15-year-old Auke de Leeuw won the competition with his poem Wrong Choice. It’s about his great-uncle who joined the Waffen-SS after the Nazis occupied the Netherlands. He died on the eastern front.
Following protests from groups, including the Centre for Information and Documentation Israel (CIDI), Auke will not be allowed to read his poem on Friday. “You can remember the perpetrators 364 days of the year,” a CIDI spokesperson explains, “but on 4 May, we remember the victims. This man wasn’t a victim.”
Bonus trick
Finally, AD squeezes a short news piece onto its front page covering the “Fury at ProRail’s bonus trick”. This winter, frozen points and the like caused chaos on the railways. MPs were so angry that they passed legislation preventing ProRail, the company in charge of rail infrastructure, from awarding its executives bonuses.
Apparently, ProRail’s board has now compensated its top executives for the loss of their bonuses – given for good performance – by simply raising their salaries by 16 percent.
“A shameful trick,” fumes one MP. “There was absolutely no good performance,” complains another. “I can’t believe they’re doing this.” Yet another sums up the counter-productive result of the legislation: “The executives are in fact giving themselves a bonus for life.”