On the same page where the Neue Zürcher Zeitung described the record exodus of millionaires this morning, there is the answer that a Western cabinet actually provides. Chancellor Friedrich Merz reported in Berlin on Thursday morning that the CDU/CSU-SPD cabinet has agreed on a package that reduces pressure on almost all axes identified as "pressure factors" by the Voting Behavior matrix. Taxes down. Bureaucracy down. Labor market flexibility up. Housing construction obstacles down. "Heute ist ein guter Tag," said Merz. And by the rules of calculation, that is simply true.

The package as it lies on the table in Berlin:

Why is this relevant for the Netherlands? Because the package does exactly what recent Dutch cabinets have not done. Germany is cutting on the axis that the Voting Behavior matrix calls "fiscal predictability." The Netherlands is doing the exact opposite — through Box 3 revisions, dividend tax swings, and a persistent discussion on capital gains. Germany is loosening on the "labor market elasticity" axis. The Netherlands is tightening there via the DBA Act and the restriction of self-employment. Germany cuts bureaucracy with the Beweislastumkehr: if the government does not respond within four months, the permit is granted. The Netherlands averages over six months and has no reversal of the burden of proof. Germany makes building easier by making the Vergesellschaftung of construction companies legally impossible. The Netherlands does the opposite with nitrogen rights and grid congestion.

The matrix will not be moved

Anyone who calculates the Voting Behavior matrix even once for the German and Dutch cases sees the same formula working in two directions. Party × Person × Baseline = Projection. Germany is reducing in the model on all three axes simultaneously: party axis (redistributive pressure decreases due to the tax cut), person axis (labor market flexibility makes more sectors mobile within the country — you don’t have to leave), baseline axis (bureaucracy relief pushes every entrepreneur’s cost bill down). The product becomes smaller. The outcome becomes milder. The departures slow down.

The Netherlands is increasing on each of those three axes in the same formula. Box 3 is ramping up. Self-employment is declining. Permit periods are lengthening. The product becomes larger. The outcome becomes steeper. The departures accelerate — with a lag of two to four years compared to Germany, but the curve is set.

He who sees Germany providing relief and the Netherlands increasing does not look at two different countries. He looks at the same matrix, two opposite inputs. And the matrix does not calculate emotionally; it only calculates.

What the Netherlands Could at Least Copy

Copying is an ugly word in political The Hague, but the German reform has three elements that can be adopted without ideological pain — because they bear neither a left-wing nor a right-wing signature, but are simply targeted reductions of the pain threshold.

One. The Genehmigungsfiktion for non-safety-critical permits: if the government does not respond within a fixed period, the permit is granted. This does not force any administrative policy choice; it only forces timeliness. For the Netherlands, it means the end of the building permit that is still "under consideration" after eight months and the grid connection that is only offered after two years.

Two. The Beweislastumkehr for government reporting obligations: every report that the government demands from companies must be justified by the government — not automatically assumed. In the Netherlands, the administrative burden for SMEs has risen significantly over the last ten years because every new law naturally produces a reporting stream. The reversal of the burden of proof forces the legislator to sober up.

Three. The flexibilization of temporary employment contracts: from three renewals to six. This needs no argument for the Netherlands — it is exactly the instrument the labor market lost after the Work and Security Act, and which especially plagues start-ups, seasonal businesses, and healthcare institutions. Reintroducing it does not mean deregulation; it means returning what was once there.

These three together can be structurally realized for less than the €10 billion/year that Germany is deploying in real tax cuts. They don't lower taxes; they only lower friction. But in the matrix, friction weighs more heavily than the rate.

The Choice No One Makes Out Loud

What happens if the Netherlands does not follow? The matrix calculates it. The baseline axis continues to rise (grid congestion, nitrogen, Box 3 uncertainty, labor market contraction); the person axis remains thin (little mobility because the entrepreneur is tied to local customers — until the point where he no longer wants to be); the party axis likely moves further toward redistribution after 2028. Germany, meanwhile, provides relief on all three. The result is not a dramatic exodus, but something worse: a steady thinning of the productive middle segment that can choose. The entrepreneur with two locations shifts his focus. The engineering firm that opens in Emden instead of Delfzijl. The shareholder who shifts his holding to Frankfurt.

Each small in itself. Added together: our industry sinks. Not loudly, not as a scandal, but like the harbor in the engraving above sinks — dark, extinguished, with silent chimneys, while across the way the light comes up.

The question in the headline is not rhetorical. It is a bill. If the Netherlands does not follow on at least one of the three axes that Germany is relieving today, then the curve that the matrix already indicated two years ago will follow. Those who do not want that must choose one axis and seriously discharge it. Otherwise, Merz's guter Tag is our bad year.