Five parties to take part in English-language election debate in Eindhoven
On Thursday, parliamentary candidates of VVD, PvdA-GL, CDA, D66, and Volt will participate in an English-language election debate at the city hall in Eindhoven. The debate is open to anyone who wants to find out more about the parliamentary election on November 22 but is aimed specifically at internationals. NL Times will moderate at least one of the four rounds during the debate.
Eindhoven News organized the debate in the Noord-Brabant city specifically because many expats live and work in the Brainport area. “The number of internationals with a vote in the Brainport region has increased significantly,” the news site said. “Many internationals have burning questions.”
Immigration is one of the hot topics in the election campaigns, given that the Ruttie IV Cabinet collapsed over the issue. Several parties, including the NSC which is currently leading the polls, have plans to limit all forms of migration. The party, along with GroenLinks-PvdA and ChristenUnie, recently proposed cutting the 30 percent ruling for expats and using that money to lower the interest rates on student loans.
International students may be concerned about the student housing shortage and plans to limit English-language courses in higher education institutions. The number of international students enrolling in Dutch higher education did not increase this year for the first time in years.
These figures show that the growth of international inflow at universities has come to a standstill,” Jouke de Vries, interim chairman of Universities of the Netherlands, said on Friday. “We urge politicians not to take radical measures that could seriously damage the quality of our education and research.”
The debate will take place at 6 p.m. on Thursday, November 16. It is open to anyone interested, and registration for the event is free. In addition to Eindhoven News and NL Times, the event is supported by the municipality of Eindhoven, and English media outlets Dutch News and Radio4Brainport. Other supporting organizations include Brainport Development and Eindhoven Airport.
