NATO Summit brings world leaders, protests to The Hague
The NATO summit officially starts in The Hague today, bringing 32 world leaders and their delegations to the Netherlands. Locals in The Hague have been faced with road closures around the World Forum for days. Today, residents of the city and the broader Netherlands can expect extra traffic as more roads are closed while dignitaries travel between Schiphol Airport and the summit.
The Rijkswaterstaat has already called on people to avoid the Randstad as much as possible and work from home if they can on Tuesday. Disruptions affecting train traffic between Schiphol, Amsterdam, and Utrecht, combined with road closures due to the NATO summit, could cause problems, the public works department warned.
On the summit schedule today is a speech by NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte at the Public Forum around 10:00 a.m. The Defense Ministers will meet with the business community in the Defense Industry Forum.
Caretaker Prime Minister Dick Schoof will receive Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at his office in The Hague, separate from the summit. Zelenskyy will also speak to the Tweede Kamer, the lower house of the Dutch parliament, on Tuesday afternoon.
This evening, all heads of government, including Zelenskyy, will dine with King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima at Huis ten Bosch Palace. Around the same time, a meeting on Ukraine will begin in the World Forum with the NATO Foreign Ministers. The Defense Ministers will also have a working dinner.
The most important day of the summit is tomorrow, when the 32 heads of government and heads of state will meet in the North Atlantic Council. After that, there will be press conferences by Rutte, the Dutch government, and several other allies, before the dignitaries will head home.
Dozens of demonstrations and protests are planned for the summit, but due to strict rules imposed by the municipality of The Hague, they won’t be as massive as previous summits drew in Brussels and Madrid. The municipality only designated two demonstration areas within “sight and hearing distance” of the summit at the World Forum for about a hundred protesters, the Volkskrant reported.
The city did not require protesters to register the demonstration, but did encourage it. The municipality received dozens of registrations in the past weeks, ranging from two people with a banner to groups saying they expect thousands of people.
