Dutch King Willem-Alexander did his best to garner support for the country’s new austerity measures yesterday in a speech that proclaimed the end of the Welfare State and welcomed the beginning of a “participation society.” Speaking in defense of spending cuts that have been sharply criticized, the monarch said the second half of the twentieth century had brought about arrangements in social security and long-term care that are “unsustainable in their current form.” In the participation society, people would be responsible for their own futures, and would have to plan for financial and medical needs on their own with less help from government.
The budget revealed yesterday by Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte contains cuts to their military, axing 2,300 military employees in addition to the 12,000 the country had already committed to eliminate between 2011 and 2015. The new budget comes after several years of unpopular spending cuts, as the Dutch try to gain control of unsustainable entitlement programs and bring their deficit for the upcoming year under the EU’s permitted 3% of GDP.
The European Union’s Stability and Growth Pact which took effect in 1999 seeks to limit member nation’s deficits and debts. It sets a 3% of GDP deficit cap which the Dutch are currently projected to go over by 0.3%. The moves towards austerity by European nations are not due to populace demands but rather an increasingly grim and sobering financial outlook. Despite resistance, King Willem-Alexander’s speech marks an important shift in European politics. The progressive, post-World War II welfare state has failed and its continuation is not financially possible.
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