Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on March 11, 2025
1 min readLast updated: January 24, 2026
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The Dutch parliament advises against joining the EU defence plan, citing concerns over fiscal rules and joint borrowing. The motion is non-binding, and the government's response is uncertain.
AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - A narrow majority in the Dutch parliament on Tuesday urged the government not to join recently agreed EU plans to strengthen European defence through laxer fiscal rules and joint borrowing.
European leaders including Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof last week hailed proposals to give EU member states fiscal flexibility on defence spending, and to jointly borrow up to 150 billion euros ($160 billion) to lend to EU governments to spend on their militaries.
But three of the Dutch government coalition's four parties backed a motion by a conservative opposition group that objected to the financing arrangements.
The motion is non-binding and it is unclear how the government will respond.
The European Commission is currently detailing the plans, which could be decided with a qualified majority of EU governments - so no single country could block them.
(Reporting by Bart Meijer, editing by Ed Osmond)
The Dutch parliament urged the government not to join the recently agreed EU plans to strengthen European defence.
Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof hailed the proposals to give EU member states fiscal flexibility on defence spending.
The motion is non-binding, and it is unclear how the government will respond to it.
EU member states could jointly borrow up to 150 billion euros for defence spending.
The European Commission is currently detailing the plans for the EU defence initiative, which could be decided with a qualified majority of EU governments.
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