The government tries to save a pensions deal with the unions, and has apparently given up on Greece. A shocking case comes before the courts and Dutch senators wrestle with their iPads. It’s all in the Dutch dailies.

Minister ‘reaches out’ to unions on pensions
Today’s big news is the government’s last-ditch attempt to salvage its pensions agreement with the unions – already the product of years of negotiations. Although the FNV trades union federation has already agreed in principle to the deal, which will see the pensionable age rise to 67 by 2025, a number of key unions are still unwilling to sign up to it.

In the words of de Volkskrant, Social Affairs Minister Henk Kamp has reached out to those unions by offering three extra concessions. He has put forward two separate ‘save as you earn’ schemes and four years of tax breaks for earners over 60.

He says this extra money could be added to pension funds. He reckons this should ensure that low earners and people in physically demanding jobs such as construction and cleaning will have enough in their pension pots to be able to retire early at 65.

AD devotes much of its front page to a photograph depicting a tight-lipped Mr Kamp. “The time for talking is over,” it quotes him as saying, “now it’s time for a joint solution.”

The paper thinks the unions are still hopelessly divided on whether to accept the deal or not. However, Agnes Jongerius, who heads the FNV federation is confident she can get a majority behind the agreement with the government.

“Mr Kamp has moved money from high to low-earners. Those are people who started work early on in their lives, and so have been working a long time but don’t have a large amount in their pension pots,” she explains.

‘Greece to fall’ – official?
It’s not often Trouw treats us to a provocative headline but this morning is exceptional: “The Hague expects Greece to go bankrupt”, we are told in no uncertain terms. Dutch government insiders say the finance ministry is making plans for when rather than if “it all goes wrong with Greece”, as the paper puts it.

Officially, Finance Minister Jan Kees de Jager is confining himself to euphemisms, saying his officials are preparing for “all eventualities, both probable and improbable”. But Trouw says financial institutions also view Greek bankruptcy as inevitable: “The only question is when,” says Rabobank boss Bert Bruggink.

Although at first glance, De Telegraaf is more expansive, “Financial world preparing for bankruptcy”, it is very much the domestic financial scene it has in mind.

Populist Freedom Party (PVV) leader Geert Wilders tells the paper that “it’s obvious Greece is about to fall”. He is demanding that the government puts its plan to deal with such an eventuality “on the table”. He wants to know exactly what Greek bankruptcy will mean for the Netherlands.

He argues a bankrupt Greece and an escalation of the euro crisis could have dramatic consequences for Dutch banks, pension funds and the economy. “More than 100 billion has already been promised [to Greece],” he fumes.

‘Society shocked’
The opening of a woman’s trial for killing her three newborn babies makes it into today’s papers. De Volkskrant says the prosecution agrees that the mentally deficient defendant was in a state of slightly diminished responsibility.

However, the Public Prosecutor’s office is still demanding a relatively severe sentence of eight years, citing the fact that the three babies’ deaths have “seriously shocked society”.

Nrc.next explains that the woman gave birth in secret without the knowledge of her partner or other children. She claims never to have been aware of being pregnant and says that after they were born the three babies showed “no signs of life” - although she admits not having looked properly.

The paper goes on to say that she had stopped taking the pill for financial reasons – she was no longer paying her mandatory health insurance premiums. The woman was frightened that she would lose her partner and family unless she concealed the births. She hid the corpses in the garden.

The paper says the prosecution is going to have a hard time proving the babies were born alive. Yesterday’s preliminary hearing took nearly two hours because of disputes between expert witnesses.

iPads for the Senate
De Telegraaf runs an inside-page photo of the Upper House of the Dutch parliament, but the scene is not as stuffy as we might expect. Ankie Broekers-Knol is not the only senator in the august chamber caught “screaming with laughter”. She is, we are told, trying to get to grips with her new iPad.

Members of the Upper House have all been issued with the gadgets which have been equipped with a special application allowing them to view the documents needed for their parliamentary sessions. The special app cost more than 100,000 euros.

However, De Telegraaf assures us, the cost will be recouped within two years. At the moment, all the documents have to be printed out and delivered by courier post to the senators’ homes.