Opposition: “Cabinet heading for disaster with extra cuts”

On Tuesday evening, the House of Representatives met with Minister Bruins and State Secretary Mariëlle Paul of Education to discuss the 400 million euro in new cuts in the Spring Memorandum that will also affect higher education. From 2030, higher education will receive 59 million less. This year, the cut will be 2 million, next year 24 million, and so on.

D66 spokesperson Ilana Rooderkerk called the abolition of the educational opportunities scheme for vulnerable pupils in secondary education particularly heartless. Together with the CDA, ChristenUnie, SGP and JA21, D66 had already submitted an amendment last month to stop the new cuts.

This so-called monster coalition of parties, which at the end of last year succeeded in getting some of the earlier cuts to education and research off the table, is angry that the coalition parties want to cut another 400 million.

D66 warned the outgoing cabinet yesterday ‘that it is still heading for a very hard wall’. The three coalition parties do not have a majority in the House of Representatives, let alone in the Senate. Moreover, the NSC is also critical of the cuts.

The amendment proposed by the monster coalition had already been advised against by Finance Minister Heinen, and Minister Bruins did not want to deviate from this on Tuesday evening because, in his view, funding should not be sought from other ministries or through new tax increases.

However, he did repeat that the ‘very ugly’ cut to the educational opportunities scheme had caused him stomach ache. He and State Secretary Paul will therefore look for ‘appropriate solutions’ to possibly reverse the cut at a later stage.

This may not be necessary if the House approves the amendment proposed by the “monster coalition” on Thursday. A vote will then also be held on the more far-reaching amendments proposed by the left-wing opposition and D66 to reverse all cuts to higher education and research.