The Netherlands’ economic forecast as published by the Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis (CPB) on March 1st, 2012 shows that the Dutch public deficit is larger than expected (4.5%), requiring severe budget cuts in order to fulfill the euro convergence criteria (max. 3% deficit).

The new VVD/PvdA government agreed on a set of budget reduction measures to reduce public spending by €16 billion (US$21 billion) by 2017. The austerity plan includes sharp cuts to development spending from 2014 onward, peaking at a €1 billion (US$1.3 billion) cut to the annual development budget in 2017. This will further bring down Dutch ODA, which is set to already fall below the level of 0.7% of GNI in 2013 for the first time in 38 years.