House of Representatives approves budget cuts in education for 2026

The new coalition, formed by D66, VVD and CDA, will reverse the budget cuts in education made by the previous government. When presenting the coalition agreement, Dutch Prime Minister Rob Jetten said he was proud of this.

However, this will not happen until next year. The budget cuts planned for 2026 will go ahead. The largest opposition party, GroenLinks-PvdA, attempted to scrap the cuts for this calendar year as well, tabling an amendment to the Education, Culture and Science budget. However, their amendment was rejected.

So, GroenLinks-PvdA ultimately voted against the education budget. But the minority cabinet still managed to obtain the support of the small Christian parties, the far-right parties JA21 and PVV, and the seven splinter groups that broke off from PVV (also known as the Markuszower group).

BBB, the farmer's party, also voted in favour. BBB's support matters in the Senate, where the party has twelve of the 75 seats. Therefore, the education budget is not at risk there.

Monkeys
VVD, a coalition party that was also part of the previous government, has passed an amendment allowing animal testing on monkeys once again. Last year, a proposal to phase out funding for testing on monkeys at the Biomedical Primate Research Centre, an initiative of the Party for the Animals, passed by a narrow majority. But the balance of power has shifted after the elections, which is why the House of Representatives is now reversing the decision. 

Ukraine
Other proposals were tabled but rejected. One of them concerned the tuition fees for Ukrainian students studying here. If a German or a Swiss student comes to study here, they pay the standard tuition fee of around 2,600 euros. But Ukraine is not part of the European Economic Area.

Officially, Ukrainians must pay the institutional fee, which costs between 10,000 and 20,000 euros per year. Because of the war, Dutch universities initially did not charge this rate, but most institutions stopped offering that discount after the government refused to reimburse the costs.

The new coalition is considering changing this policy, but it has not yet reached that point. An attempt by GroenLinks-PvdA to support Ukrainian students as early as the coming academic year has been rejected.

Children of benefit recipients
The Socialist Party (SP) had proposed allocating funds to cover the student debt of children of parents receiving benefits. These children have often helped their parents by taking out additional loans from DUO. Recently, children’s ombudsmen have sounded the alarm over the student debts this has caused, but the government is dragging its feet.

Most MPs are unwilling to reimburse these student debts. The SP proposed offsetting these debts with funds still available from the resolution of the childcare benefits scandal, but that proposal has been rejected.