The Dutch government’s Spring Budget reduced 2025 funding for Kingdom Relations from 263 million to 190 million euros (see Wednesday newspaper) compared to the projections submitted six months ago. Unfortunately this was primarily because of postponed expenditures.
Of the 73 million euros cut, 23 million went to the Ministry of Justice for the Joint Criminal Investigation Team RST and 21 million to the Ministry of Defence for border control operations.
Another 36 million euros remain under Kingdom Relations but were deferred to future years, of which 22 million euros represents subsidies administered by the Temporary Work Organisation (TWO). The latter is guiding implementation of a so-called “country package” of reforms agreed on with the Netherlands in exchange for COVID-19 crisis liquidity loans.
That this might take a bit longer than expected seems understandable, as one is dealing with local circumstances including economy-of-scale limitations on the islands due to their small size. Plans always look good on paper, but realising them requires the necessary execution capacity, knowledge and enforcement means.
It’s also important that inhabitants own the socioeconomic problems these restructuring measures aim to address and become part of their solution. That means closely involving people who actually live here throughout the process.
These are factors to be considered by The Hague as well. There is no sense in rushing things without properly preparing for responsibly handling them.
Sometimes, haste makes waste.
