State Secretary Blokhuis of VWS has provided almost two million euros in subsidy to an organization to help unintentionally pregnant women, despite warnings from officials that this may have been illegal. NRC reports this on the basis of documents requested by Bureau Clara Wichmann.
It concerns Siriz, an organization that was founded in 2010 by the Association for the Protection of the Unborn Child. Since 2014, the organization has received 1.5 million euros per year at the insistence of the SGP. According to NRC, an official writes in an internal note that the SGP “wanted to gain something ethically” in exchange for support for the Rutte II cabinet in the Senate. PvdA and VVD supported the amendment in which the subsidy was awarded. The money was used to provide information.
Officials at the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport doubted the wisdom of the subsidy from the start. Also because this led to annoyance at other organizations that offered help to unintentionally pregnant women, such as FIOM, which saw its subsidy more than halved during that period.
disadvantaged
Despite the advice from officials to stop the subsidy, it continued in 2018, after the Rutte III cabinet took office. After a conversation with the director of the foundation, the new State Secretary Blokhuis (CU) decided to continue supporting Siriz, despite the warnings from officials that the foundation received preferential treatment and that it would be “prohibited state aid”.
The subsidy should still stop in 2019 because the rules were changed: the money for help to unintentionally pregnant women had to be distributed fairly from now on. From that year on, any approved organization could provide assistance at a fixed rate.
At the insistence of the director of Siriz, Blokhuis promised the organization a last bridging subsidy in 2019. At that time, it was no longer about one and a half million, but about 500,000 euros.
‘transition phase’
The Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport confirms the reporting in NRC about the subsidy for Siriz, which has been maintained for years. There would have been a transition phase. When Blokhuis became state secretary, it became clear to him that the subsidy that had been established under his predecessor “could not continue”, he says in a written response.
However, according to him, the State Secretary could not just stop the subsidy, the State Secretary writes. The fact that he still subsidized Siriz in 2018 and 2019 for a total of two million was because “the subsidy relationship has been phased out at a pace that suits good governance”.
Siriz no longer receives a direct subsidy, but it still receives money for advice.
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