Lieftinck’s budget box
On 17 May 1946, parliamentary elections were held again for the first time since World War II. Barely two months later, the Beel I cabinet took office and Prof. Piet Lieftinck became finance minister.
On the third Tuesday of September, he presented the government’s budget to parliament.
Lieftinck was familiar with the British tradition of using red boxes (briefcases) to carry government documents and, as the new minister, he introduced his own tradition. An official was sent out to buy a briefcase and found one in a shop on Laan van Meerdervoort in The Hague for 3.75 guilders. ‘Third Tuesday of September’ (budget day) was stuck on it in gold foil letters. But the letters kept wearing off and around 1955 the text was painted on with gold paint – a more long-lasting solution.
The tradition
From its introduction in 1946 up until 1964, this briefcase was used on Prinsjesdag (the state opening of parliament) to carry the national budget and the budget memorandum (miljoenennota in Dutch) to the States General. After the king (or queen) delivers the Speech from the Throne in the Ridderzaal, the ceremony moves to the chamber of the Lower House. The Speaker of the Lower House receives the national budget from the Minister of Finance on behalf of the States General. At that time, the sections of the national budget are not yet bound: an orange ribbon is tied around each section, one for each minister. Nowadays, not all the sections of the budget can fit into the white goatskin leather briefcase that’s been used since 1964. For the sake of tradition, a few sections with orange ribbons are put in it. All the sections are made available online that same day. Since 1887, the opening of the new parliamentary year of the States General has taken place on the third Tuesday of September. Before then, the tradition was the third Monday.
Reconstruction
Piet Lieftinck is remembered for being a very frugal minister, as he had to make – and keep – the Netherlands financially sound during the Reconstruction period after World War II. There are many cartoons in our collection in which he is immediately recognisable with his slightly domed head and round glasses. The Apeldoorn firm LIWA made a Lieftinck piggy bank that is also a kind of cartoon. Perhaps it made people feel good to smash open Lieftinck’s earthenware head! Fortunately, they had first applied his thriftiness to their own budget.
Fun fact
On 18 September 2015, Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem personally returned Lieftinck’s budget box to the museum. He had borrowed it for budget day that year because he saw himself facing a similar task to Minister Lieftinck’s: to spend limited resources frugally. Dijsselbloem also brought along the current budget box and placed both boxes to mark the opening of the exhibition Prinsjesdag en de Miljoenennota.
Fun fact
Finance ministers have departed from existing traditions on more occasions.
Onno Ruding, for instance, presented a budget memorandum on a microfiche in a mini-case. Jan Kees de Jager, who had founded an IT company before becoming minister, presented his first budget memorandum to the Lower House on an iPad with a matching case.