Dutch King Willem-Alexander declares the end of the welfare state.

Source.

Dutch King Willem-Alexander declares the end of the welfare state.(Telegraph).HT: LittleBytes.

Youngest monarch in Europe says people must take responsibility for their own future and create their own social and financial safety nets.

King Willem-Alexander delivered a message to the Dutch people from the government in a nationally televised address: the welfare state of the 20th century is gone. In its place a "participation society" is emerging, in which people must take responsibility for their own future and create their own social and financial safety nets, with less help from the national government.

"The shift to a 'participation society' is especially visible in social security and long-term care," the king said, reading out to lawmakers a speech written for him by Prime Minister Mark Rutte's government.

"The classic welfare state of the second half of the 20th century in these areas in particular brought forth arrangements that are unsustainable in their current form."

Rutte may be hoping that the pomp and ceremony surrounding the king and his popular wife, Queen Maxima, will provide a diversion from the gloomy reality of a budget full of unpopular new spending cuts he revealed later in the day.

A series of recent polls have shown that confidence in Rutte's government is at record low levels, and that most Dutch people — along with labor unions, employers' associations and many economists — believe the Cabinet's austerity policies are at least partially to blame as the Dutch economy has worsened even as recoveries are underway in neighboring Germany, France and Britain.

Geert Wilders, whose far right Freedom Party currently tops popularity polls, called Rutte's budget the equivalent of "kicking the country while it's down."Hmmmmm......New world guidelines anyone?