ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses three major social pacts in the Netherlands negotiated under four consecutive coalition governments of variegated partisan political complexity and highly different styles of policymaking, to find socially legitimized fiscal retrenchment responses to the international financial crisis. In contrast to the glorious days of the “polder model” during the 1980s and 1990s, when stable majority governments’ coalitions agreed with the social partners on wage adjustment, labour market change, and social security reform, this chapter discusses a novel modus operandi of Dutch social concertation. After the “double dip” aftershock of the Great Recession, consecutive cabinets first negotiated a two-step Crisis Wage Pact on wage-setting and labour time reduction; later ignored social partnership; but then found a new practice to proactively reach out to the social partners, especially the trade unions. With amended labour market reform agreements in hand, the minority governments turned to parliament to seek second-order compromises with the so-called “constructive opposition” parties to ultimately seal legislative agreement in line with the Brussels-based Fiscal Compact. In 2019, after ten years of negotiations, an encompassing Pension Pact was agreed upon, when the Dutch economy was back to fiscal health and economic growth, associated with low levels of unemployment.
