International

The new cabinet is spending tens of billions of euros in an arbitrary fashion, but is completely losing sight of the people. This is how SP MP Mahir Alkaya describes the coalition agreement of Rutte 4. 'They spend billions of which it is totally unclear what effect they will have. But everyone is worse off. Students in the failed debt relief experiment are fobbed off with a tip as compensation and youth care and care for the elderly are being cut back drastically.'

In today's debate on the start-up memorandum, the new cabinet's finances, Alkaya will propose that students who are confronted with the debt system must be fully compensated by the cabinet: 'How does this cabinet have the nerve to force a whole generation into debt for tens of thousands of euros and then come up with a compensation that amounts to only a thousand euros per student. Together with other parties, I will submit a proposal to compensate students fairly for the government’s failed neoliberal experiment.'

Besides young people, the elderly are also hit. Although for 40 years there has been a rule that the state pension (AOW) is to increase in line with the minimum wage, Rutte 4 is now unlinking these benefits. 'For some time pensions have not risen in line with wages, and now the AOW is not rising in line with the minimum wage either. This means that the elderly are being hit twice. I hope that on 12 February they will join the SP in taking action against these unfair plans.'

The government must move quickly to introduce fair taxation on wealth, Alkaya argues: 'The Netherlands is a country with an extremely unequal distribution of wealth. The ten percent richest households own almost two thirds of all our wealth, and they currently pay no tax on their wealth. Extremely rich persons must start contributing to more resources for fair compensation for students and decent retirement provisions for our elderly.'

This article is a translation of an article on www.sp.nl