A higher minimum wage, free childcare, a more generous asylum policy and higher taxes for the rich. With the new plans that D66 will present in the election program on Sunday, the ruling party will explicitly compete with left-wing parties.
The new party leader Sigrid Kaag receives the program on Sunday afternoon in Rotterdam, but the more than two hundred pages long text turned out to be online by accident. D66 is the first party to announce its program.
With Kaag as party leader, the coalition party also hopes to draw voters away from parties such as GroenLinks and PvdA. This is also evident from some proposals in the election program in which the party converts to a “progressive capitalism” in which the government shows itself as a much stricter market master.
In addition, D66 is tightening up the objectives for climate policy, there is a lot of emphasis on more nature and agriculture has to reform drastically. D66 wants, among other things, to tax the greenhouse and nitrogen emissions of farmers more heavily. For example, the switch to less polluting, circular agriculture must be stimulated.
In the socio-economic field, D66 is also shifting to the left in some subjects. For example, people with assets of more than a million have to pay a tax of 1 percent. In addition, the party wants to increase the minimum wage by 10 percent and – if employment permits – even 20 percent. D66 is also committed to free childcare for everyone, an idea that a party like the PvdA has been advocating for some time.
The loan system will also be restored. D66 wants a “new scholarship”, which amounts to 300 euros for all students via the Tax Authorities and another 400 euros per month for students with parents who earn less than 70,000 euros per year.
Under Kaag, D66 also wants a more generous asylum policy. The Netherlands has now committed itself to bringing 500 refugees to the Netherlands per year via UNHCR. That has to increase from D66 to 5,000 people per year. In comparison, the EU now has a joint quota of 25,000 people per year.
