Protest against education cuts on the Wageningen campus. Photo: Guy Ackermans. The cuts in education and research are not going to get through the Senate, warns the opposition. But the four governing parties do not care about that, it turned out Tuesday night. ‘We have now chosen security.’
Translated using DeepL
In recent days, several opposition parties came up with proposals to undo – in part or in full – the cuts in education and research. They see an opportunity. In the House of Representatives they do not have a majority, but in the Senate they do, so there they can stop the budget.
On Tuesday evening, during the debate on the national budget for education and research, Luc Stultiens (GroenLinks-PvdA) left no room for misunderstanding: his party is voting against the cuts in education and research. ‘Don’t do it,’ he quoted the thousands of demonstrators who stood on Malieveld on Monday.
Even Chris Stoffer of the usually pro-government SGP warned that things could go completely wrong for this cabinet. If the senators reject this budget, the old budget will remain in place, including the investments of the previous cabinet. ‘Does the coalition have that for glasses?’
Blind wall
Sure it does, but Tuesday night it showed little of that. PVV, VVD, NSC and BBB had coordinated their defense of the budget among themselves. All questions about political feasibility were passed on to Minister Eppo Bruins. The latter should see for himself how he acquires support, was their line.
The opposition parties could hardly believe that. Does the PVV keep driving towards a blind wall, for example Jan Paternotte (D66) asked member of parliament (MP) Patrick van der Hoeff. ‘I’m not afraid of a blind wall , the PVV member replied. Such questions were also asked by VVD, NSC and BBB and they gave similar answers.
In the debate, the four governing parties were unable to provide a rationale for their cuts, except that they would like to allocate additional money for defense and purchasing power. It remains unclear why they would then take that money out of education and research.
Money is not always the solution
Above all, they emphasized that extra money is not always the solution to problems in education. For example, despite all the investments made in recent years, there is still a teacher shortage and reading skills are poor among students. If money does not demonstrable help, seems the reasoning, you might as well take it away.
Trouble is, even Minister of education Eppo Bruins disagrees. He has called his own cuts ugly and painful. Paternotte (D66) said of it, ‘We are in the situation where the minister is not defending a budget, but deploring a budget.’
The coalition parties, however, stood firmly by their cabinet’s budget, saying only in the abstract that austerity simply hurts. Harmen Krul (CDA) did his utmost to hear what points were heavy on the minds of government party NSC, but even after two insistence MP Aant Jelle Soepboer would not say anything about it. The ChristenUnie also tried and mentioned social service hours. ‘We are not cutting away the whole social service time, but the subsidy on it,’ Soepboer replied.
Region
Claudia van Zanten (BBB) also got pushed into a corner. BBB was created to give the region a voice, right? Is there anything good for the region in this budget, D66, CDA and SP wanted to know. Van Zanten couldn’t think of a single example.
The VVD also took a hit where it hurt: economists and business think the cuts are a bad idea. It comes at the expense of the future economy, is their conclusion. Joost Eerdmans of JA21 asked, ‘So is the whole economic world crazy or is the VVD crazy?’
VVD MP Claire Martens-America understood the question, but had little response to it. ‘We have now chosen security,’ she said. And also: ‘Ten years ago we were still spending less money on our education than we will soon be after the cuts.’
On Thursday, Bruins is going to answer all the House of Representatives’ questions. The biggest question, of course, is whether there will be a compromise by then.