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SINT MAARTEN/THE NETHERLANDS – The far-right PVV has again refused to support its minister over plans to cope with the shortage of prison cells, instead calling for “eight men in a cell” who should “sleep standing up” as an option.

Prisons minister Ingrid Coenradie was attempting to win MPs’ support for her plan to release some prisoners two weeks early because of the shortage of space, but this is a measure “which is not going to happen,” PVV parliamentarian Emiel van Dijk said during a bad-tempered debate.

PVV leader Geert Wilders said last month that “no prisoners are going to be let out one or two weeks early” and threatened to pull support for his minister, a move he later retracted.

Coenradie told the parliamentary justice committee on Wednesday that the situation is extremely complicated and said that her measure to send prisoners home early is the best of a bad set of choices.

During the discussion, Van Dijk suggested putting eight people in a cell and letting them sleep standing up, to which JA21 MP Joost Eerdmans responded by saying this was the “Auschwitz method.”

“Are you really serious?” he asked Van Dijk. “Your party is part of this cabinet. So you either back your minister or send her home.”

Coenradie and prison organisations oppose multiple occupancy cells because of the safety risk to inmates and guards.

“We are talking about cells measuring 10 square meters. I do not want to treat people like garbage,” Coenradie said. “I want them to leave prison decently and hopefully never come back.”

The minister is also planning to build two emergency prisons with basic facilities and has said she needs “hundreds of millions” of euros to address the lack of cells and personnel after 26 jails were closed and hundreds of prison officers quit their jobs in the last 10 years. The prison occupancy rate is currently 99.5%.

The debate will continue next week.

(DutchNews)

SINT MAARTEN/THE NETHERLANDS – Finance minister Eelco Heinen has said the vote in parliament against the European Union’s proposed €800 million rearmament plan will be included in discussions on how to fund the extra military spending.

MPs voted by 73 to 71 for a motion opposing the plan, announced by European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen last week, to raise the money by relaxing the EU’s budget deficit rules and a €150 million collective loan scheme.

Three of the four parties in the Dutch coalition backed the motion, tabled by one-man right-wing party JA21, with the VVD the only one to support the package.

The Netherlands cannot block the plan because prime minister Dick Schoof voted in favour of it at last week’s European summit, but the vote will weaken the Dutch government’s position when it comes to fleshing out the details.

The cabinet’s irritation was evident from the terse response that followed Tuesday’s vote. “The cabinet has taken note of the Eerdmans motion relating to the chairman of the European Commission’s ideas for strengthening European defence (REARM),” it said. “The cabinet will inform parliament ahead of the debate on the European Council on March 20 and 21.”

Vote “premature”

Heinen, a VVD minister, told RTL Z that the rejection was premature. “There isn’t a plan of any kind yet,” he said. “This is based on a press release by the European Commission.

“We have always said: wait for the plans and look at the terms that the Netherlands has set. It say we are not sending extra taxpayers’ money to other countries, that we are maintaining the budget rules, and that debt sustainability is important.”

Frans Timmermans, leader of the opposition GroenLinks-PvdA alliance, said the three coalition partners had “thrown the prime minister under the bus,” while former defence minister Kajsa Ollongren told Nieuwsuur: “This is very bad for the Netherlands’ position internationally and in Europe.”

Ollongren said: “The Netherlands has already voted for the plan, but now the other countries are hearing that the Dutch parliament has turned against it, which will raise the question: does the Netherlands want this or not?”

“Frugal” coalition

Member states will be able to raise an extra €650 million in military spending if Von der Leyen’s idea of raising the budget deficit threshold to 4.5% of GDP is endorsed by finance ministers.

The remaining €150 million would be funded by a loan scheme secured against unused funds in the EU budget, commonly known as Eurobonds.

During the coronavirus pandemic the Netherlands was part of a group of “frugal” nations within the EU, along with Germany, Sweden, Austria and Denmark, who opposed the use of Eurobonds. But all the other nations are now in favour of funding a rapid increase in defence spending through borrowing.

The frugal sentiment was evident in the response of parties that opposed the plan, but also those that supported it.

Pieter Omtzigt, of coalition party NSC, said his party backed Ukraine to the hilt, but Eurobonds were the wrong instrument for funding defence spending.

Hands tied

“It increases the risk of a new and deep debt crisis,” Omtzigt said. “That threatens our basic financial stability, which would leave countries in no position to help Ukraine further.”

Heinen also said he “shared the concerns” of parties about the risk of saddling EU nations with more debt. “I understand those concerns very well, but that’s not what was being voted on.”

VVD leader Dilan Yesilgöz said her party backed the ReArm Europe plan despite its misgivings about the use of debt funding. “We shouldn’t send the cabinet into these talks with its hands tied,” she said.

“It gives you no credibility as a country and puts the cabinet in an impossible position.”

(DutchNews)

SINT MAARTEN/THE NETHERLANDS – Finance ministry investigators say there has been an increase in money laundering operations in sectors which employ large numbers of low-skilled foreign workers, such as healthcare, farming and delivery services.

The money is laundered via contractors and sub-contractors who pay their workers in cash earned via crime while billing their clients in the normal way.

The cash is “bought” from criminals and “compensated” by means of fake bank payments to companies led by criminals who then spend the laundered money buying houses and other goods and financing other criminal activities.

The method is becoming widespread and leads to unfair competition, tax dodging and the abuse of foreign workers, chief public prosecutor Michiel Zwinkels told the NRC.

“The worry is that criminal money is penetrating deep into the economy, ” he told the paper.

Last year, a court in Rotterdam sentenced for people to prison sentences of up to five years for laundering €4.5 million.

The case is the tip of the iceberg, Zwinkels said. “It shows that reporting small unusual transactions is important despite criticism from the banks. If banks were not under this obligation, we would never have uncovered this type of fraud,” he said.

Zwinkels called on the government to improve collaboration between different government bodies to tackle money laundering, for instance by circumventing privacy rules when it comes to sharing privileged information, such as court rulings.

If someone who has been convicted of fraud requests a licence to build temporary homes, the local council in question would not have access to the whole verdict because of privacy restrictions, Zwinkels said.

“We should take a leaf out of Italy’s book. There all government departments have a duty to tackle the mafia. If we had the same system in this country, the public prosecution office could share much more information with local authorities than we do now. And that would help us enormously in combatting money laundering,” he said.

(DutchNews)