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Originally Posted by danielf
The real issue here is Wilders. Not the cuts.
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Well, well, well. Wilders pulled the plug on the coalition after 7 weeks of talks on cuts, and it takes two days of talks between remaining coalition parties and three centre left parties to reach an agreement on a package of cuts that will bring the deficit below the 3% threshold. Good to see parties working together constructively in the interest of the country, rather than their own electoral gain.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17859968
Quote:
Dutch crisis: Parties 'close to deal' on budget cuts
Five Dutch political parties say they have come to an agreement in principle over budget cuts that led to the collapse of the government this week.
PM Mark Rutte called elections for 12 September after Geert Wilders' Freedom Party (PVV) refused to back billions of euros in cuts to the 2013 budget.
But ministers still have to meet an EU deadline for measures to reduce the country's budget deficit to 3% of GDP.
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Good piece in
yesterday's FT by the way:
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The fall of the Netherlands' government over the weekend after budget-cut negotiations collapsed has been widely taken as a sign of a gathering revolt against European Union-imposed austerity measures.
In one sense this is on the mark: Geert Wilders, the anti-Muslim eurosceptic politician whose support had given the minority coalition its majority in parliament, pulled out of the talks because he could not have sold his voters on tax hikes and benefit cuts carried out at Brussels' behest.
But anyone expecting the Netherlands to turn towards the anti-austerity prescriptions of neo-Keynesian economists in London and New York has another thing coming. Across the political spectrum, every Dutch party in parliament – and there are 10 of them – agrees on the need for budget cuts and tax hikes to bring down the budget deficit. The disagreements are not over whether to cut, but how much, how soon, and who should pay.
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