Minister Kaag writes this in a letter to the House of Representatives. Until now, the Netherlands assumed that around 6 billion euros was waiting in Brussels from the European recovery fund, which was set up in Brussels at the start of the corona crisis after heavy negotiations. At the end of last year, the coalition parties still signed an amount of 5.8 billion euros.
But that amount seems to be considerably lower, namely 4.7 billion. This is because the amount that countries receive is partly determined by the economic contraction during the crisis. Until now, the estimate was that for our country it would be 5.3 percent in 2020. But that seems to work out at 3.8 percent. And the expected economic growth in 2021 will turn out to be a lot higher than previously thought.
So the Netherlands can probably get a lot less money from the pot that it also strongly opposed during the negotiations. Incidentally, it was the Netherlands itself that committed itself to linking it with economic developments.
These are still preliminary calculations, says Kaag. But because the amount has become so smaller in the new calculations, she is already informing the House of this.