Dutch Senate wants to know what happens if they reject the budget

On March 26, the Dutch Senate debated the budget for the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science. The senators had all kinds of concerns about the austerity measures proposed by the budget, especially for higher education and research. So much so that the debate advanced well into the evening.

Several opposition senators wore pins with a red square, the international symbol of academic protest. They also quoted the slogan used in the many demonstrations held by the sector in recent months: 'Don't do it.'

Hope
‘I don't know where to start with all this misery’, said Daan Roovers (Groenlinks-PvdA). “Stupidity rules”, said Gaby Perin-Gopie (Volt). “It is an attack on our children's future”, said Paul van Meenen (D66).

These opposition senators sparked some hope that the budget could be blocked. The cabinet (comprised of parties PVV, VVD, NSC and BBB) does not have a majority in the Senate because NSC is not represented there. To approve the budget, the cabinet had to reach a compromise with at least some opposition parties, which happened a few months ago, when they made a deal with an alliance comprised of SGP, CDA, ChristenUnie and JA21. However, the deal is starting to show some hairline cracks.

'That deal does not necessarily apply to the Senate’, said Senator Hendrik-Jan Talsma, from ChristenUnie. He is one of the senators concerned about the legitimacy of the budget cuts in universities. This turned out to be the most difficult topic of the debate for the Minister of Education, Eppo Bruins.

After all, Bruins broke an agreement the previous cabinet had made with universities. The ministry had promised to provide universities with funding for various purposes for ten years, but that is now off the table. CDA and SGP also had questions about this.

Bruins' answer acknowledged that the ministry had broken universities' trust. He could not explain why that was not a problem from a legal point of view, he simply accepted the argument from civil servants. He wasn't even sure if he had received written substantiation for it. In all haste, a stack of paper was later brought to the Senate during the debate, but it made little impression.

If universities manage to challenge the budget cuts, Bruins will have to cut 250 million euros somewhere else in his budget.

Further meetings
The Senate will continue its deliberations next week. In addition, almost all parties on the Council of State want to know what will happen if the Senate rejects the entire budget. An information request to that effect has been adopted. Only the coalition party PVV voted against it – they claim that opposition parties only want to delay the process. The far-right party Forum for Democracy was absent.

Even well-meaning parties saw snags in the budget. This includes the governing party BBB, which has a hard time with the ambiguities regarding internationalisation in border regions and regions suffering from population decline. Senator Frans van Knapen wants to largely exempt universities of applied sciences from language-related measures intended to counter the anglicisation of higher education.

A majority seems to support the budget, however. Annabel Nanninga (JA21) immediately announced that the budget would be approved, as far as she was concerned, even though she thought it was a bad budget. After all, her party had made a deal. ‘Voting it down causes so much misery. This is as good as it gets,’ she said. ‘In our view, rejecting the budget would be completely irresponsible.’ SGP senator Marc de Vries saw no reason to postpone the vote on the budget, and CDA senator Theo Rietkerk did not seem keen on thwarting the budget, either.

As for ChristenUnie, they are concerned about the legality of part of the budget but see no point in extending the debate next Tuesday. The party says it knows enough about the budget to vote on it.