Senate accepts budget cuts, universities take government to court

The vote on the budget for the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science in the Senate went as expected. The coalition parties voted in favour, as did the JA21 and the three Christian parties, the ones with whom they had made a deal. The 50Plus party, which campaigns on behalf of the elderly, also voted in favour.

The other parties voted against it. The Ministry of Education, Culture and Science's budget is ‘an attack on the future of our young people,’ stated Paul van Meenen, from D66, ahead of the vote. ‘This may sound a bit too strong, but it is.’

Several universities, including Tilburg University and Radboud University, are going to court because over 200 million euros are being cut from starter and incentive grants. 

Unlawful
The previous cabinet had entered into a management agreement with research universities and promised additional funding. Now that the budget has been approved, this means the agreement is being broken. Senators also questioned this while debating the budget.

Tineke Huizinga (from the Christian party ChristenUnie) explained her vote as follows: ‘The minister has not been able to remove my fraction's doubts about whether or not the possible cancellation of the administrative agreement is unlawful.’ Nevertheless, her party supports the budget because she believes the legality problem is relatively small. It concerns 200 million euros out of more than 50 billion euros in total.

Motion
ChristenUnie did, however, join in a motion from the opposition calling for the administrative agreement to be upheld after all. It made little difference: the party probably knew that the motion would be rejected by the other parties.

This motion was intended to win over the ‘monster alliance’ comprised of the parties JA21, CDA, SGP and ChristenUnie, and perhaps even more parties. They would not have to reject the entire budget but only a small part of it. It requested the government ‘to fully implement the administrative agreement for 2025 and enter into consultation with the institutions regarding any deviation from the agreement in the following years’.

Resistance
Therefore, the resistance to the budget continues, and not only in the courtroom. The National Student Union announced that students are going to protest again: ‘The future of our children and grandchildren is being affected,’ they say. Trade union FNV, which defined the approval as ‘a pitch-black day for Dutch education’, is drawing attention to local protests and strikes, such as the ones that happened earlier this week in Rotterdam and Tilburg.

The Executive Board of Utrecht University finds it ‘extremely disappointing’ that the Senate has approved the education budget. ‘Today is a dark day for higher education in the Netherlands, and our university,’ states UU President Anton Pijpers. ‘This was not what we had hoped for, and what students and colleagues have been fighting for through various protests over the past months.'

'The approval of this education budget not only represents a huge cut in our education but also a brake on the future of our students and social progress. We have invested in knowledge and innovation for years, but these plans put that at risk. We will not sit still and will continue to argue for a different course. Because cutting back on education is cutting back on the future.’