Prinsjesdag as the most important day in the political year: that may become a thing of the past. The cabinet plans may be announced in the spring in the future. So: the hats and the party, but the king will soon read old news.
It was a 12-page note, but the impact may be many times greater than you might think. Minister Sigrid Kaag (Finance) quietly sent her plan to the House of Representatives on Wednesday evening. With the unfamiliar title ‘Parliamentary letter on the budget process’, yes, but there may have been a significant change in The Hague’s habits hidden in it.
For years there has been discussion about Budget Day, the third Tuesday in September, when the cabinet unfolds its plans for the coming year with the entire rata plan – the Glass Carriage, the briefcase, the Budget Memorandum. But fear not: the cabinet does not want to get rid of all the folklore. The hats remain, the king’s speech, the carriage ride, but the substantive part could change drastically.
The intention is to share the most important plans for the following year, the Budget Memorandum, including the always extensive tax plans, in the spring. That is something that various MPs have been urging for years, because the big advantage is: it gives them more time.
Now the budgets of the ministries are being treated with steam and boiling water, just as there is only a few days of debate for fiscal changes. Everything will be under time pressure after September, in order to allow the plans that come into effect on January 1 to actually go ahead.
Cabinet adviser to the Council of State already advised last year to ‘bring forward’ the budget process. It helps the House: it can give more resistance (‘more dualistic relationships’ according to the Council), because it then does not have to vote down an entire budget if it prefers to debate one point further. In this way, the Senate and the House of Representatives get ‘on the ball’ earlier, the Council wrote. Another advantage: the European budget cycle is also focused on the spring, so the Netherlands was already out of sync, and now had to submit half-baked intentions to keep the EU informed.
Whether the entire plan will go ahead is still up to the House of Representatives and the Senate: there will be a debate about it later.
The big loser, however, would be King Willem-Alexander. Because if the emphasis is on spring, he will soon read out mainly old news in the speech from the throne. Kaag acknowledges this in so many words. There will then be ‘less news announced’. Nevertheless, the plan to make spring more important than Prinsjesdag is ‘preferred’ by the cabinet, according to Kaag.
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