Defense did not cut, but spent € 1 billion due to the naval barracks debacle

The additional costs were “partly predictable” and “avoidable”, writes the Court of Auditors, which is therefore not moderate in its opinion. This amount of more than 1 billion also includes the 650 million compensation that the State has paid to Zeeland.

Nothing came of the cutbacks

In 2012, the Ministry of Defense hoped to achieve one-off savings of 23 million euros by not renovating the old marine barracks, but by building a new one in Vlissingen. In addition, 2.7 million euros per year would be saved on operating costs.

Nothing came from these cuts, says the Court of Auditors. In 2020 it was decided not to move the marine barracks to Vlissingen, but to Kamp Nieuw-Milligen near Apeldoorn. A new calculation shows, according to the report, that construction of the marine barracks therefore twice as expensive.

After the credit crunch, the Defense Ministry drew up a policy brief in 2011 in which it said it wanted to meet substantial austerity targets. It was also called a reduction operation. For example, tanks, helicopters and mine hunters had to be sold because they were written off. But the sales proceeds were disappointing. By no means was all the equipment sold, but refurbished with substantial costs as a result. So there was also the cancellation of the Marine Barracks. Total: 423 million euros.

But that’s not all, because Zeeland received compensation of 650 million euros for the cancellation of the Marine barracks. This brings the sum to 1.73 billion euros, which should have been reduced according to plans in 2011, but which is now spent.

The House of Representatives was unable to complete the task

The fact that this only came out now and was not highlighted earlier, the Court of Auditors attributes to the fact that the costs and consequences were not properly studied, that the alternatives were not seriously identified and that the agreed reductions have been lost. In addition, according to the Court of Auditors, it has become impossible for the House of Representatives to properly control the cuts.

In response to the findings, outgoing Defense Minister Ank Bijleveld said the ministry had now started “to put information management in order”. She also states that everything is now more transparent. To explain the loss of more than a billion euros, she says that in the end, there were fewer cuts “because the security situation in the world has deteriorated”.