Prinsjesdag

How convivial it all was again in and around The Hague on the third Tuesday of September. Angry farmers with tractors, hay fires along the motorways, disruption on the railways. A government that, like its predecessors, gets no further than analysing the problems. The social partners and the House of Representatives are invited to put forward ideas for solutions. And in the meantime, we are becoming poorer and poorer.

It has been decades since we concluded that the Netherlands was sick. The use of benefits under the Sickness Benefits Act and the Invalidity Insurance Act (WAO) was unprecedented. In practice, all attempts to curb this have failed. OECD/Eurostat data show how the position compared across the EU in 2022/2023:

I conclude from this that, although we are close to the EU average, there are enormous differences between countries. That makes me curious. Is this due to their employment law, their work ethic, or the cultural pressure to participate in the labour market?

In the Netherlands, 80,000 new claims under the Work and Income according to Labour Capacity Act (WIA) are expected this year. More than 10% of these claimants are under the age of 30. In other words, these are people who have already been ill for two years. Their conditions are predominantly mental-health related. It may be noble of Hans Spekman and his colleagues at the FNV trade union to campaign to protect these people's rights, but I was nevertheless pleased to hear him say that more must be done on prevention. That, however, is probably where it will end. Preventive solutions are never popular. We are strongly focused on treatment, and industry capitalises on this. We continue with our unhealthy lifestyles until they start to hurt. Then we turn to ecstasy, cocaine, Ozempic and Pfizer's toxins. The decline is visible on the streets. People no longer feel ashamed to dress like vagrants, rummage through bins for food, and we even regard begging in the streets as normal. Perhaps they should let me write next year's Speech from the Throne.