As you can see above, by far the largest part of the money goes to wage support, the so-called NOW scheme. That is the case in many European countries, says Zsolt Darvas, economic researcher at the Brussels think tank Bruegel. Since the start of the crisis, Bruegel has kept track of the corona support packages in various European countries.
“The goal of many countries has been to keep people in work. That costs a lot of money, just calculate: about half of all people work in the private sector, and many of those companies lost business when the crisis started.”
Fighting the health crisis also costs money, Darvas says, but less. “You need more doctors and nurses. And, for example, ventilation systems, mouth caps, protective clothing. But that cannot be compared with a subsidy for the salaries for such a large part of your population.” In the Netherlands, for example, a total of 5.5 billion euros has been budgeted for the test capacity and 3.04 billion for the healthcare bonus, while 26 billion has been budgeted for wage support.
Generous
The amount that the Netherlands has budgeted for wage support is relatively high compared to other countries, says Darvas. “The arrangement seems to be quite generous in the Netherlands,” says Darvas.
He refers to a report by the socio-economic think tank Eurofound from March this year. This shows that the maximum reimbursement of salaries in the Netherlands at the time was 90 percent, while in Italy it was 80 percent, for example, and 70 percent in France. This has now fallen to 85 percent in the Netherlands.
The Netherlands is also one of the seven EU Member States that made it possible to pay people with a zero-hours contract through wage support. In other countries, it was mainly permanent contracts that were protected under the scheme. Compared to other European countries, the Netherlands also has a relatively large number of flex workers.
272 schemes
The Court of Audit keeps track of how much extra the Netherlands spends due to the corona crisis, and where that goes. “We started it because there were so many measures and a lot of money involved,” says Irrgang. “In total there are now 272 regulations. It was no longer possible for citizens, MPs, for us to keep up.”
All schemes that are not separately highlighted in the graphs above together cost 21 billion euros and can be found in the ‘other’ category. This includes arrangements such as extra money for childcare, combating loneliness of the elderly and compensation for students.
The UK Court of Audit had already started keeping track of corona expenses. “Then we decided to do the same,” says Irrgang. “It’s a big job, but it’s still public money and it’s important that it can be tracked so we can see if there is enough control over abuse and improper use.”
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