D66 in particular must tread carefully in debate on the OCW budget

The new cabinet was supposed to reverse the cuts to education and research. Yet cuts are being made again, and the promised cap on interest rates for student loans is not going ahead. How will the ‘education party’ D66 respond this week?

Last week, the cabinet broke a promise: there will be no cap on interest rates for student loans after all. A maximum rate of 2.5 per cent would cost more than expected, education minister Rianne Letschert wrote to parliament.

Her own party, D66, had included such a cap in its election manifesto. What is more, interest was supposed to be abolished entirely for students from the unlucky generation. This will be one of the interesting issues in this week’s debate on the OCW budget: how will D66 respond to the U-turn?

The party has to weigh up several competing interests. On the one hand, it wants to stand up for students; on the other, it wants to protect its own minister and make the best possible use of the available education budget.

Reputation

The party also has to guard against reputational damage. Wasn’t D66 supposed to be the education party? How can the largest party in government so easily break an election promise that is also included in the coalition agreement?

The National Student Union is furious. Together with FNV Young & United, the union is launching a LinkedIn protest today, asking young people to state on their profiles that they are ‘unwilling sponsors of government interest payments’.

Reputational damage is already looming. When the coalition agreement was presented, party leader Rob Jetten proudly said the cuts to education would be reversed, but the situation seems to have changed. D66 is now trying to describe this money as ‘additional’ funding. If some of it is then taken away, perhaps it will feel less painful.

Because there will indeed be less than promised. For example, the ‘additional’ funding will not rise in line with inflation, which is estimated to make a difference of around 67 million euros over the next two years. When the Socialist Party asked about this, the minister brushed it aside, saying she was unaware of those estimates. D66 came to the minister’s defence with a curious argument: it would not be a cut to education at all, because some other departments had received the same reduction.

An impossible choice

All this is happening against the backdrop of a bigger problem: the cuts to social security are not going ahead for now. If the government fails to bring costs down, education will bear the brunt. That is how it has been budgeted, at least. D66 says it will not happen, but this is how it appears in the budget.

The cabinet seems to be trying to force the opposition and trade unions into an impossible choice: cuts to social security or cuts to education, as if there were nowhere else to make savings. If education is cut after all, the cabinet can say it is not to blame – the trade unions are. The question is who will believe that.

This week will make clear where the parties draw the line. The opposition has plenty of ammunition, but what will happen within the coalition itself? Will D66 still put critical questions to fellow party member Rianne Letschert, who also helped lay the foundations of the coalition agreement while overseeing coalition negotiations? Or would that put unnecessary pressure on an already shaky minority coalition?

Fierce debate

Perhaps D66 does not need to be so cautious. However unstable governments may be, none has collapsed over an education issue since the 1970s. Still, parties have strong views on the subject, so debates can get heated – including between coalition parties.