The Netherlands is requesting money from the European Recovery Fund and is focusing on greening and digitizing the economy. The ultimate goal is to become climate neutral.
The government wants to use the European money to invest in cleaner inland shipping, offshore wind energy, hydrogen and heat pumps. In order to become climate neutral, the energy tax for large-scale users will be raised, the air passenger tax will be increased, and there will be some form of mileage tax.
The European Recovery Fund is part of NextGenerationEU and was established to accelerate the reconstruction of Europe after the covid pandemic. The Recovery Fund contains 750 billion euros, 390 billion in grants and 360 billion in loans. About a third of the funds will be spent on the European Green Deal, which aims to make the economy climate-neutral by 2050.
Besides greening, digitalization is an important ambition of the EU. The plans of the Netherlands should lead to investments in train traffic and better traffic flow on the road and less emission of greenhouse gases. What stands out however, is a lack of plans regarding the knowledge of IT within companies and the government. Past years have shown that there is room for improvement in that regard according to Annelieke Mooij, professor of law at Tilburg University. She criticizes the plans because there is too little attention to improving the quality and security of IT facilities.
The subject of IT procurement is also not touched upon in the plans to get green and digitize. If the focus is turned on greening the economy, the principles of the circular economy need to be followed. Especially since sustainability is taking on an increasingly important role within companies. An IT procurement strategy should be aligned with circular economy principles in order to strive for the goal of becoming climate neutral.