Once again, opposition fails to thwart cuts

Can the minister cancel an administrative agreement with the universities and cut more than 200 million euros in funding from the sector just to save money? The Dutch Senate discussed this question one last time on Tuesday, before the senators are supposed to vote on the budget for the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science for 2025.

According to an administrative agreement that the previous cabinet concluded in 2022, universities were supposed to receive more money for ten years, but the current coalition has thrown the agreement away.

Even Robbert Dijkgraaf, the previous Minister of Education, got involved in the matter. It is very unusual for a former minister to get in the way of his successor, but Dijkgraaf told the newspaper De Volkskant this week that the agreements were intended for the long term "in letter and spirit".

Legitimate
Not all senators were in the mood to continue last week's debate on the budget. “We have doubts about the usefulness of this third term because it is not going to be solved anyway,” said SGP senator Marc de Vries in the education committee of the senate. “There are conflicting legal opinions. I think that, even with longer speaking times, we are not going to solve it this afternoon.” VVD, BBB, PVV and JA21 also did not need to speak.

Nevertheless, the debate started that afternoon, and it soon became clear that the Christian opposition parties and JA21 would help the government obtain a majority, as expected. These parties made a deal with the cabinet in the House of Representatives, promising to vote in favour of the budget in exchange for an alleviation of austerity measures for the ministry. Thanks to their deal, the budget cuts went down from over 2 billion euros to approximately 1.2 billion.

As for the administrative agreement, CDA sees no legal problem in terminating it. The Christian Union is not obstructing it either. They ague that the one cut in scientific research only concerns a small part of the budget.

Violation
Several opposition parties are doing everything they can to convince their colleagues otherwise. GroenLinks-PvdA pointed out all the agreements that the government still wants to conclude, such as a healthcare agreement, a welfare agreement and a new education agreement. What is an agreement with this government worth if you can violate it just like that?

Universities will probably file a lawsuit soon. According to some experts, they could win. But the Senate should not pass such issues on to the courts, D66 senator Paul van Meenen believes. "If that were to happen, our right to exist would lapse. This is what we are here for."

Since the budget as a whole will not be rejected, parties D66, GL-PvdA, Volt, OPNL, SP and PvdD have jointly submitted a motion on the violation of the administrative agreement: the government should only reverse this part of the cuts, they argue.

Changes can be made
The Minister of Education, Eppo Bruins, advised against this opposition motion. He reiterated his position that a new cabinet can change policy and adjust funding.

Though universities were promised extra money, that did not happen via targeted subsidies, argues the minister. Instead, it happened via total funding, and the institutions receive this ‘lump sum’, that is: as one bag of money that they can spend as they see fit. In his view, that alone means that the agreements were not binding. One can reclaim a subsidy if it is not spent properly, but that is not possible when one is talking about funding as the institutions have freedom of expenditure.

And what about trust? Bruins acknowledged that binding agreements were made. He is also aware that his predecessor intended for universities to have additional resources for many years. “However, that does not mean they are legally enforceable.”

Trust
Opposition parties gathered at the interruption microphone and fired questions at the minister, but he was unmoved. He acknowledged that trust has been violated, “both on a human and institutional level”, but did not draw any conclusions.

Party SP has requested a roll-call vote on the budget so that all senators must personally say ‘for’ or ‘against’. In principle, this will happen on Tuesday, April 8.