The Dutch cabinet has set aside no money for now to build the northern part of the Zuidasdok in Amsterdam, according to plans published on Friday 16 October.
Over the coming years it will spend 18 billion euros, mostly on maintaining bridges, locks and roads across the country.
Maintenance before new projects
Existing roads, railways and bridges now come first, so 31 planned projects nationwide are on hold, including the northern Zuidasdok.
The Zuidasdok is the biggest infrastructure project in the Netherlands and is meant to make the city and the northern Randstad easier to reach.
Amsterdam relies partly on national government to pay for it.
City had urged MPs to back it
Early this year, Steven van Weyenberg, who was then the alderman for spatial planning, asked council members to lobby their party colleagues in the Tweede Kamer, the lower house of parliament, to keep the project going.
At the end of January he told the council the project was vital and had to be finished in full rather than left halfway.
So far the cabinet appears not to have listened.
Check out our guide to Amsterdam local politics.