THE HAGUE, 22/11/07 - The coalition is inclined to have replacement equipment for the army paid for out of the foreign ministry budget in future. The Christian democrats (CDA) and Labour (PvdA) are favourably disposed towards a proposal from their small Christian coalition partner ChristenUnie.

The Lower House recently forced the cabinet to earmark an extra 100 million euros in compensation for equipment wear-and-tear in the mission in Uruzgan in Afghanistan. ChristenUnie MP Joel Voordewind however wants replacement costs resulting from damage to tanks and other equipment during missions to be routinely covered in future by the Homogenous International Cooperation Group (HGIS), a foreign ministry fund. Possibly, if the HGIS is too small, the money must then be supplemented with general funds from the finance ministry, according to Voordewind.

CDA and PvdA consider this an appealing plan. They want to avoid Defence slowly eating into its budget. In this connection, CDA MP Raymond Knops also came up with a proposal to permanently compensate the department for higher taxes and rising prices from 2009. He said that, because the Defence budget is not linked to these, it would be eroded by 92 million euros a year from 2009. "In the coalition accord, a one-off 500 million was added, but via the back door, the money would flow back in its entirety to the finance minister within four years," Knops complained.

PvdA and CDA remain sharply divided on the question of whether Defence must adapt its ambitions to the money available in future or vice versa. The PvdA was criticised by CDA on its plans to sell a lot of equipment to save the defence personnel. The conservatives (VVD), in opposition, also criticised these "naive" proposals by PvdA MP Angelien Eijsink.

Like CDA, small Christian party ChristenUnie wants to keep the present level of ambition intact. This implies that the armed forces must at all times be in a position to carry out three operations simultaneously at battalion level (700-800 military). The current mission with a force of about 1,600 in Uruzgan is however seen as three simultaneous operations.

A leaked recommendation by Commander of the Armed Forces Dick Berlijn recently suggested that the army cannot sustain the present ambition in Uruzgan. The Netherlands is expected to extend the mission after August 2008 with fewer troops, with a total of 1,200 being posited in the corridors.

The cabinet, it emerged earlier, will itself draw up a plan to have the Defence budget dovetail with its ambitions. This study will not be ready until autumn 2009, and in any case, implementation will be left to the next administration.

Defence State Secretary Cees van der Knaap does want to go ahead with Joint Strike Fighter (JSF). It is expected that the Netherlands will sign an agreement in the coming months on the purchase of two test aircraft, to be ready in 2011 and 2012. The development of the JSF, meanwhile formally re-christened the F-35, is not subject to any delay, the ministry reported in a letter to parliament.