Dutch will spend $2.7 billion on "Operation Beethoven" to keep ASML

By Toby Sterling

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) -The Dutch government on Thursday said it would spend 2.5 billion euros ($2.7 billion) to improve the Eindhoven region to ensure the country's largest company ASML doesn't move operations outside the Netherlands.

Economic Affairs Minister Micky Adriaansens confirmed the figure to reporters as part of a wider plan to retain ASML dubbed "Operation Beethoven". Funding will go to improve housing, education, transportation and the electric grid.

In a statement, the Cabinet said it also intends unspecified measures to ease the tax burden on businesses, following an outpouring of distress from companies.

"In taking these measures, the Cabinet presumes that ASML will continue to invest and keep its statutory, fiscal and actual headquarters in the Netherlands," it said.

Semiconductor equipment maker ASML, Europe's largest tech company is based in the Eindhoven suburb of Veldhoven, Netherlands.

The company shocked the Dutch government into action after CEO Peter Wennink went public this month with complaints about policy, including plans to end a tax break for skilled migrants which would make it harder for the company to hire vital staff.

ASML also said the government has been failing to invest properly to improve infrastructure in the booming Eindhoven technology hub where it is based, from highways to housing to electrical grid improvements.

A Reuters survey of Dutch blue-chip companies this month found that more than a dozen were considering moving operations outside the Netherlands. Many complained that after populist parties booked major gains in a national election last November, parliament has been pushing through policies without considering the long-term impact.

Talks on a new right wing government are creeping along, forcing outgoing Prime Minister Mark Rutte's caretaker government to act.

In addition to anti-immigration measures, companies oppose a new tax on share buybacks, limits on the tax deductibility of investments, and complain policy is too unpredictable.

Shell and Unilever moved their headquarters to London after the Dutch government in 2018 was forced to renege on a promise to scrap a dividend withholding tax.

($1 = 0.9257 euros)

(Reporting by Toby Sterling; Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise, Kirsten Donovan)