Billion-dollar boost for maintaining tech companies in the Eindhoven region

• Roel Bolsius

  reporter The Hague

• Marleen de Rooy

  Political reporter

The call from the Eindhoven region that the government must do more to retain technology companies such as ASML and NXP in the Netherlands appears to have been heard.

The outgoing cabinet is finalizing a plan that should ensure that such companies want to stay in Eindhoven. ‘Project Beethoven’, it was called. And the government is prepared to spend a lot of money for this, sources tell NOS. But negotiations between the government, companies and the region continue until the last minute, so the amounts have not yet been determined.

This includes an amount of at least one billion euros in additional money. In addition, the intention is that money that has already been reserved will be spent earlier. And existing government ‘funds’ for supporting the business community are being examined. All in all, financial space is created for a major boost for the region.

Insiders tell NOS that the outgoing cabinet will leave it to the next cabinet to take further measures, but the first steps are now being taken.

In the package of the outgoing cabinet, approximately half a billion euros will go to infrastructure, mainly intended to invest in the highways and rail connections around Eindhoven.

All those companies in the so-called ‘Brainport’ need a lot of technically trained personnel. The government is making 900 million euros available for this purpose and another hundred million per year. These amounts are intended for Eindhoven University of Technology, which can therefore grow considerably. MBO and HBO courses in the region will also receive a share.

To keep up with economic growth in the region, investments are also being made in the construction of new homes. There is talk of a contribution from the government of around one hundred million euros, but then the region and the business community (especially ASML) must also contribute money.

The amounts have not yet been precisely determined, because the boost for the Eindhoven region will still be discussed tomorrow. The intention is that this will be dealt with in the Council of Ministers on Thursday.

The mayor of Eindhoven, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, previously said that much higher amounts are needed for the region to keep up with growth and keep companies here. The significance of technology companies for the Dutch economy is enormous, he said. They bring in a lot of money to the treasury in tax revenue, so an investment will pay off.

The government is also trying to prevent other large companies from leaving the Netherlands. That is why it wants to come up with alternatives to tax measures that were adopted by the House of Representatives before the elections and are painful for companies. The current House would prefer to get rid of the measures again. The business climate is also an important theme in the cabinet formation.

This concerns, for example, taxing the purchase of own shares by companies. The previous House of Representatives wanted to prevent companies from increasing the value of shares without paying tax on them. But many parties now believe that such a measure has too great an impact on the business climate.

The proposed reduction of the expat scheme, which would mean that employees from abroad would have to pay more tax, is also a thorn in the side of many companies. Because this makes it more difficult to attract highly skilled personnel from abroad, alternatives to this measure are now being looked at. Ultimately, the House will have to judge this.

Also on the table is the issue of the permits required to export high-quality chip machines to China. The US is putting pressure on our country not to issue those export permits.

America does not want China to gain too much of a technological lead. But it saves ASML a lot of money, because those machines easily cost 80 to 90 million euros. It has now become a complicated geopolitical jousting, an issue that, according to insiders, cannot be solved with money alone.