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The Dutch budget talks are moving, but an agreement requires more than exchanged concessions. This Signal asks whether coalition and opposition can protect their mandates, share responsibility for the whole budget and make choices that endure beyond the next vote.
A minority government needs more than enough votes to pass a budget. This briefing sets out five ways the Netherlands could build a durable agreement: shared evidence, meaningful opposition input, time-bound reforms, deliverable investments and a clear European strategy.
The Netherlands’ 2027 budget promises investment in the future while a minority government negotiates support in the present. As reforms are delayed and spending rises, the central question is who will ultimately pay for the choices postponed today.
ASML sells virtually no chipmaking machines in Europe. The demand exists, but remains fragmented across industries. Europe’s semiconductor challenge may therefore be less about building fabs than about turning its own companies into coordinated anchor customers.
Europe already has the money and public institutions needed to support new factories, energy networks and battery plants. The challenge is getting them to work together so private investors can join promising projects before every risk has disappeared.
Europe needs Ericsson to preserve technological agency, but Ericsson needs global markets to remain relevant. The company’s strategic value lies not in technological isolation, but in keeping Europe influential inside the standards and architectures shaping worldwide communication.
Europe already possesses many of the companies, technologies and industrial sectors needed to sustain a semiconductor market. The challenge is no longer only building fabs, but connecting demand across mobility, energy, healthcare, telecom, aerospace and AI infrastructure.
Europe’s Scaleup Fund is beginning to do more than finance individual companies. With six investments completed and more than 100 firms in the pipeline, it may be creating the late-stage capital layer Europe has long lacked.
Europe’s sovereignty debate is becoming more concrete. Grids, critical materials, capital, computing and security institutions now sit at the centre. The harder test is whether Europe can turn this emerging machinery into operational capacity at continental scale.
Six investments in, Europe’s Scaleup Europe Fund is moving from institutional design to market execution. The next test is harder: whether its capital can mobilise markets, attract institutional investors and keep strategic European companies anchored as they scale.
