The vote on the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science (OCW) budget in the Senate went as expected. The coalition parties voted in favour, along with the parties they had struck a deal with: JA21 and the three Christian parties. 50Plus also joined in.
The other parties voted against the budget. Paul van Meenen (D66) stated beforehand that the OCW budget is ‘an attack on the future of our youth’. “That may sound a bit dramatic, but it is indeed the case.”
Several universities are taking legal action due to the cuts of more than 200 million euros to starter and incentive grants. Tilburg University and Radboud University will certainly do so, according to the announcement.
Illegal
This is because the previous government made an agreement with the universities and promised additional funding. That so-called bestuursakkoord or governance agreement has now been broken. The Senate also raised questions about this during the budget debate.
Tineke Huizinga (ChristenUnie) said in a voting statement: “The minister has not managed to alleviate the doubts of my faction regarding the possible illegality of cancelling the agreement.” Nevertheless, her party supports the budget, as this legality issue is considered relatively minor: 200 million euros out of a total of over 50 billion euros.
Mammoth alliance
The ChristenUnie did, however, support a motion from the opposition calling for the agreement to be upheld. There was little at stake: the party likely realised that this motion would be rejected by the other parties.
This motion was intended to pull the ‘mammoth alliance’ of JA21, CDA, SGP and ChristenUnie across the line, and perhaps even more parties. They would not have to reject the entire budget, but only a small part. The request to the government was ‘to fully implement the agreement for 2025 and to engage in discussions with the institutions regarding any deviations from the agreement in the subsequent years’.
Resistance
The resistance against the policy will continue, and not just in the courtroom. Students are set to demonstrate again, the National Student Union has announced: “There are cuts being made to the future of our children and grandchildren.” The trade union FNV (“A dark day for Dutch education”) is drawing attention to local actions and strikes, such as today in Rotterdam and Thursday in Tilburg.
There is still much to fight for. The governing parties often clash with one another, and now they must come to an agreement on the Spring memorandum, with all its ups and downs.
