Chambre de réflexion or political cauldron? With only a few weeks to go before the installation of the new Senate, the coalition factions and a large part of the opposition are diametrically opposed. Point of contention: whether two major laws, the new pandemic law and (especially) the pension law, should be debated and voted on at the last minute. Undemocratic and unnecessary, say parties such as the PVV and 50Plus. The coalition and opposition factions such as PvdA and GroenLinks believe that this is urgently needed.
This disagreement leads to scenes that are rare in the Senate. Last Monday, for example, PVV senator Alexander van Hattem demanded a roll-call vote to postpone the debate on the ‘pandemic law’, the successor to the corona law that should give the cabinet the opportunity to intervene in the event of a subsequent pandemic. The 120 pages of answers to the last questions came very late that Friday, Van Hattem complained. But just within the deadline, the coalition responded. Van Hattem persevered, but the debate started anyway. It resulted in the somewhat hallucinatory situation that the Senate at the beginning of the evening voted by roll call on the postponement of a debate that had already been going on for a few hours. Senators from all over the country had to brave the evening rush hour to come to the Chamber. The result: 26 votes for postponement, 31 against.
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‘Political Obstacles’
Similar attempts to delay can be expected around the discussion of the pension law, which starts this Monday and continues on Tuesday. The law provides for a large-scale reform of the pension system: where a pension fund currently only has one collective pension pot, everyone will receive a personal pot under the new law.
50Plus senator Martin van Rooijen, who as a fierce opponent single-handedly asked almost a thousand questions about the law, received no support for postponing the debate last week. But the Senate is already taking into account a possible third term and votes on May 30, the day that the new Senate is also elected. The margins for postponement are tight: Tuesday, June 6 is the last meeting day of the current senate. The pension law must enter into force on 1 July, so that pension funds can prepare for the new system.
Hassle about what the Senate can and cannot put on the agenda with the finish in sight is a four-yearly ritual. This year, emotions are running extra high due to the political sensitivity of the two laws. Also striking is the involvement of the BoerBurgerBeweging. The party is in the Lower House and not yet in the senate, but in a few weeks it will be, then even as the largest group. Party leader Caroline van der Plas and future Senate leader Ilona Lagas therefore sent the Senate a letter last week with the request to postpone the votes on the pandemic and pension law in any case.
According to BBB, there are no constitutional, but there are “political obstacles” to voting on these laws now. According to BBB, low trust in politics calls for “careful processes and full recognition of the latest election results”. It would be “inappropriate” that BBB, an opponent of both laws, could not vote despite the big election win.
‘Bewildered’ by the BBB
The democracy argument does not make sense, says VVD senate party leader Annemarie Jorritsma. She is “stunned” by BBB’s letter and calls it “an insult to the Senate”. She finds it “very undesirable and impure” that members of the House of Representatives interfere with the agenda of the senate in this way.
Jorritsma is supported by Professor of Parliamentary History Bert van den Braak. “The question of whether the Senate can still function fully politically is not an issue. After all, we are not dealing with a caretaker cabinet now, as we did after the parliamentary elections.”
Another argument: carefulness. Certainly the pension law is not a law that you deal with at the last minute, says independent Member of Parliament Pieter Omtzigt. He points out that the House of Representatives has held several rounds of debates on the law, totaling more than a hundred hours. “The pension law is the biggest reform in ten years. If you then think as the Senate that you can deal with the entire law in two days, then you really get inadequate treatment given the complexity.” Omtzigt warns on his blog that many important substantive questions about the law remained unanswered, for example whether the IT systems of pension funds can handle the changes: “This can actually only lead to accidents.”
Proponents argue that the Upper House of the pension law has not rushed the bill and that the usual process has been followed in recent months. As with the pandemic law, the opposition was given the option of a third round of written questions and expert hearings were held. “The pension law has been extensively prepared, even more than that,” says Jorritsma. Another advantage of being treated by the current senate is that the spokespersons are well trained. In the event of a postponement, “new MPs have to fully familiarize themselves again and that is also a tough and time-consuming job”, tweeted GroenLinks senator Ruard Ganzevoort recently.
Apart from all fundamental and practical arguments, there are simply political interests at play. The proponents of deferral are opponents of the laws, and vice versa. In the current Senate, the majority for both laws is much larger than after June 13, when the new senate is installed. The expected vote ratio for the pension law makes this clear: where 48 of the 75 senators are now known as in favor (VVD, D66, CDA, CU, GroenLinks, PvdA, SGP), that number may soon have shrunk to around forty, and for a majority requires 38 seats.
The exact composition of the new Senate, and therefore the precise number of supporters, still depends on the vote on the distribution of the remaining seats for the new House on 30 May.
Does 50Plus senator Van Rooijen have any tricks up his sleeve to stop the pension law? In 2017, as a member of the House of Representatives, he once spoke for four and a half hours in an attempt to get a tax law stranded. Now he has asked for ‘only’ 110 minutes of speaking time. “It is much longer than the others,” says Van Rooijen. “But the Senate is not a House of Representatives. I want to do it purely on the content.”
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