NL – PvdA leader Lodewijk Asscher presented his own plan for what a third round of coronavirus support should look like, consisting of 50 billion euros in short- and long-term investments. The government must focus on targeted investments, and people who lost their jobs in the crisis must be retrained and moved to jobs in sectors with staff shortages, such as the technology, education, healthcare and sustainability sectors, he proposed, NOS and BNR report.
A great many people have already lost their jobs and the government is doing too little to help them, Asscher said to BNR. “Now things are going wrong in certain sectors, such as in the culture sector. So it is very important to retrain and transfer people to other work. In addition, you have to bring forward investments to create work,” he said. “I have missed support for specific sectors, people lose work and income every day and it is the task of political parties to come up with an optimistic message. The government’s support packages expire on 1 October, which is why we are in a hurry. Companies that have no security are now firing people.”
According to Asscher, “a large investment and stimulus package is needed to support the economy”. The government has been promising structural investments for some time, “but has mainly been arguing about the name of the fund,” the PvdA leader said to NOS. He added to BNR: “The cabinet has so far invested zero euros from the Wopke-Wiebes fund.”
The opposition party has 10 billion euros worth of short-term plans, including a fund for retraining, further training and part-time unemployment benefits, according to NOS. There should also be a guarantee regulation for the preservation of construction jobs, and an emergency package for the arts and culture sector.
On the longer term, the PvdA proposed investments totaling in 40 billion euros. Asscher wants to permanently abolish the landlord levy. The party wants to make 10 thousand euros available for each additional home built on top of the existing plans, and to push extra money into making 400 thousand rental homes more sustainable. The party also proposed building a fast train connection between Amsterdam and Groningen, and extending Amsterdam’s Noord-Zuid subway line to Schiphol.
