Corona Account: total expenditure of €87.6 billion in 2020-2023
Less money was spent to combat the COVID-19 crisis in 2022 than budgeted. Expenditure will fall further in 2023. The Budget Memorandum for 2022 included expenditure of €19.9 billion, €3.4 billion less than foreseen on Accountability Day 2022. The Budget Memorandum includes €5.5 billion for corona measures in 2023.
These outcomes can be seen in the latest edition of the Corona Account, where the Netherlands Court of Audit has been recording budgeted and actual expenditures in a dashboard since the outbreak of the pandemic. The largest declines in budgeted expenditure in 2022 relate to the Temporary Emergency Scheme for Job Retention (NOW) and the Fixed Costs Grant Scheme (TVL). NOW expenditure has been adjusted sharply downwards by €3.4 billion to €1.2 billion and TVL expenditure by €0.8 billion to €3.6 billion. At €2.8 billion, the cost of testing capacity was €1.3 billion lower than budgeted. On the other hand, the €0.8 billion in support provided to KLM in 2022 has been added to the budget.
The Budget Memorandum for 2023 includes fewer corona crisis measures. Some measures are also considerably narrower in scope. Most money has been budgeted for the National Education Programme to overcome educational disadvantages and for the municipal health services and safety regions (€1.3 billion each). €0.6 billion has been budgeted for testing capacity. The sharpest fall in budgeted expenditure relates to the TVL. In 2022, €3.6 billion had been reserved for the TVL, but this will fall to €0.3 billion in 2023. It will consist solely of payments to companies that had previously received too little TVL support.
Central government expenditure on corona measures over the entire 2020-2023 period is expected to amount to €87.6 billion. The Corona Account will be updated again on Accountability Day, 17 May 2023, when the Court of Audit will provide further information on actual expenditure in 2022.