Also in the last hours before the deadline of the Spring Memorandum, the coalition disagrees about how much money there is

According to the parties at the table, the negotiations for the Spring Memorandum go into a crucial day. But even in the last 24 hours, the coalition still disagrees about how much money there is to distribute. That raises the question of how much time the parties still have for major adjustments to the budget, and whether they will move forward difficult choices.

The Spring Memorandum is an update of the current budget for 2025, and an important preview of the 2026 budget. The discussion revolves around an agreement in the Outline Agreement of the coalition. The parties agreed last year how much money will be spent per file in four years, and they agreed a ‘windfall formula’. The core of that formula is: if the budget deficit is long -term smaller than 1.5 percent, then there should be more money to spend.

NSC, among others, is of the opinion that this windfall formula can now be used. The party believes that realized budget deficits should be considered to assess whether the formula is in force, and the shortage has been less than 1.5 percent for the past three years. This Tuesday, the party again made it clear at the table that the formula should apply.

Finance Minister Eelco Heinen (VVD) does not agree. Heinen believes that the cabinet should look ahead, at future shortages, such as the calculators of the Central Planning Bureau Die Wamen.

Purchasing power

And that doesn’t seem like the only point of discussion. It is known that the coalition parties want the cabinet to do something for the Dutchman’s wallet – even though the last economic estimates of the Central Planning Bureau showed that wages rise faster than inflation, which in principle increases purchasing power.

Heinen said at RTL that agreements about purchasing power are made ‘traditionally in the summer’, and thus implied that it would not be the moment for that now.

The party leaders wanted to say nothing about the progress of the Spring Memorandum on Tuesday afternoon when entering the large debate hall of the House of Representatives.

Slide

Nicolien van Vroonhoven (NSC) and Henk Vermeer (BBB) ​​expressed Monday evening and Tuesday morning that the spring memorandum should be finished this Tuesday. The question is whether this deadline is feasible and realistic: is common in such negotiations to first determine the financial space before choices are made about the distribution of money.

A possibility that is being taken more and more into account is that the coalition is pushing a number of difficult files further. For the predictability of government policy, it is desirable that agreements are already made for the expenditure in 2026 in the Spring Memorandum, but not required by law. The budget laws for 2026 are only made in August, in the run -up to Prinsjesdag on the third Tuesday of September.

Dutch municipalities do need clarity for their financing these days. They performed the pressure on Monday to Prime Minister Dick. From 2026, municipalities receive 2.4 billion euros less from the government annually, while they do have to perform all kinds of legal tasks. Moreover, municipalities need more resources for youth care, while the government wants to cut back on it.

Right

If the municipalities do not get money with this Spring Memorandum, the chairman of the Association of Dutch municipalities of Sharon Dijksma, mayor of Utrecht, threatens to go to court. « A low point in the mutual relationships, » she calls it in a letter.

Minister Heinen wants to finish the plans on Thursday. Due to Good Friday, the Council of Ministers is this week a day earlier, on Thursday. Then Minister Heinen wants to submit a spring memorandum to his colleagues, he said this Tuesday at RTL. That is why Wednesday is the very last day to negotiate.

The agenda also offers little space, because the cabinet has to hand in budget pieces in Brussels at the end of this month, said Heinen. The Council of State still needs time to give advice about the Spring Memorandum, just like the economists of the Central Planning Bureau, who have to calculate the plans.

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