I can't talk about the Netherlands but if it's like France: the process is very different in the case of layoffs, where you want to reduce the workforce for economical reasons (e.g. shrinking revenues), and firing an individual employee. In the first case employees are not let go on the basis of the performances.

Firing individual employees for performances or because they made a serious offense is a different completely process. Whether they get a severance package or not depends on the reason of the firing.