The political leader for the Dutch Socialists party (one of the two ruling parties) just stated on TV that they cannot approve the F35 because the accounting office determined that one of the key parameters can not be met with the low amount of aircraft on order (37).
Minimally the Dutch must be able to operate all missions on a continuing base abroad with at least 4 Aircraft, something that is deemed impossible with only 37 Aircraft in the fleet.
A top up order to compensate for this shortfall is out of the question, failing to deliver on this key-parameter is an automatic no-go.
Also if this order goes ahead , the official order will only be set in the course of 2015, all price changes or substantial €/$ exchange-rate changes that lead to a price-increase and therefore a further reduction in numbers will automatically lead to a cancellation of the whole order.
It looks like the Dutch are putting all their eggs in a further partnership with Belgium and as such regaining the benefits of a combined Air Force of sufficient scale.
Whatever happens between now and 2015, it is going to be interesting one way or the other.
One possible and interesting solution could be that a combined split buy to reduce overall costs could mean that the total amount of F35's might be upped to 48 (11 extra for Belgium) and a fleet of 36-48 NG Gripens with limited specialised tasks like Air support, QRA, recce, .... .
One thing is certain, like our NAVIES before, we will melt together as one combined Air Force with one Airspace.
A330,Vip fleet, A400M's(3 or 4 extra) , NH90's, A109, ALPHAJET'S and the new fighters (F35+JAS39 ?) from Belgium combined with NH90, Chinook, Apache, F35 and KC10-DC10 from Holland with 5 airbases (Florennes, Kleine Brogel, Volkel, Gilze Rijen, Leeuwarden) and 1-2 extra station(Melsbroek or/and Eindhoven).