De Jonge hopes that support for 2G will come with time | Inland

“I see that the support is still insufficient at the moment,” says De Jonge. “I want the broadest possible majority in the House for 2G, so let’s use the time we have anyway to properly answer questions that exist.” The minister also wants to come up with an international comparison of how 2G works abroad.

The House of Representatives would discuss several bills this week, including the extension of the corona pass to the workplace and 2G, which only gives visitors to busy events and catering establishments access if they are cured or vaccinated. According to the Outbreak Management Team (OMT), 2G only works with a significantly lower number of infections.

Although the infection figures seem to be leveling off and the cabinet hopes to see a decrease next week, we are not ready for the reopening of busy events and night catering, for which 2G is intended, argues De Jonge.

Recently he wanted to quickly guide the bill through the House, but on Monday he suddenly asked the House for a postponement. In a letter, just before the House was to fill in the debate agenda for this week, he requested that the bills be discussed beyond the Christmas recess. “With the high infection pressure now and the continuing pressure on healthcare, we do not expect that there will be room in the short term to further open parts of society with 2G.”

Meat in the tub

According to De Jonge, moving the handling of the bills to January has the advantage that we know better what kind of meat we have in the tub with the omicron variant. The delay does not mean that De Jonge is pre-sorting to abandon 2G. “The groups have to ask themselves what they want. It’s either 2G or the night catering will be closed for longer.”

The House is fine with the postponement. Previously, the opposition in particular only wanted to discuss the bills once a new cabinet had been formed. That held the coalition back at the time, because it wanted to accelerate. Now the ruling parties are still pressing the pause button.

Whether the parties will come to an end is highly questionable. Parties such as PVV, SGP and FvD hope that postponement will come. The CU is against 2G in principle because of the alleged dichotomy that results, although the party does not clearly say ‘no’. “As has often been said, the CU 2G – now and also later – will not find a healthy way,” says MP Mirjam Bikker. The SP is also not yet ‘over’.

In the meantime, the cabinet still hopes to be able to ease the current evening lockdown as of 19 December, although the current figures do not give any reason for this. De Jonge: “We are expected to pass the peak in the number of infections in the coming days, but we must always be careful with these kinds of predictions.”

Also listen to the podcast Hammering with Wouter de Winther about the Dutch corona situation:

–