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Pressure was mounting on the Dutch government ahead of a cabinet meeting on Friday over its response to a child welfare benefits scandal after the Labour Party leader stepped down.
Lodewijk Asscher said on Thursday that he would not stand for re-election in the upcoming March 17 parliamentary elections over the scandal, which saw the tax authority wrongly accuse families of fraud when claiming child welfare benefits.
Asscher was social affairs minister in the previous Dutch government from 2012 to 2017 but said in a video posted to Facebook that he “did not know that the tax authorities had launched an illegal hunt for thousands of families.”
The Labour Party shared power in the government until losing seats in 2017 and is now in opposition.
A parliamentary report had revealed in December that thousands of parents had benefit payments stopped amid fraud investigations. Some of those parents went into debt after being wrongly accused of falsely claiming benefits.
Prime Minister Mark Rutte said on Thursday that he had spoken to Asscher.
“I greatly appreciated his tremendous commitment to our country and our cooperation over the years. I personally wish him all the best,” Rutte tweeted.
The Dutch government has apologised for the scandal and set aside €500 million for parents impacted by the scandal.
But with the cabinet set to decide its response to the scandal on Friday, some Dutch commentators are speculating that Rutte could resign ahead of a potential no-confidence vote.
It’s unclear how this could impact the country’s COVID-19 response amid thousands of daily infections and a slow rollout of coronavirus vaccines.
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