The Netherlands and Germany want to collaborate more intensively in tackling climate change and the energy transition, Prime Minister Mark Rutte and Chancellor Angela Merkel said after meeting at the Catshuis in The Hague on Thursday. There are differences in how the two countries are approaching these issues, and those differences are opportunities to learn from each other, they said, NOS reports.
Politics
Aug 23 '19 08:36
The coalition parties in the Rutte III government reached broad agreements on the focus of the Netherlands' tax plans for next year. Low- and middle-income households must see an improvement in their purchasing power. And it must become easier for people starting out on the housing market to find a home, NOS reports.
"We have taken further steps on our way to Prinsjesdag", Prime Minister and VVD leader Mark Rutte said after an hours long meeting between the coalition parties and the Ministry of Finance, which ended at around midnight on Thursday.
Aug 22 '19 14:30
The Royal Family said goodbye to Princess Christina at the Noordeinde Palace in a private funeral on Thursday. The Princess died on Friday at the age of 72 after a long struggle against bone cancer.
The coffin with Princess Christina's remains stood in the Dome of Fagel on the Palace grounds since Tuesday, so that family, friends and guests could say their goodbyes, NOS reports. On Thursday the coffin, with sunflowers on it, was transferred from the Dome to the carriage house of the Royal Stables.
Aug 22 '19 13:40
The names of Dutch beer magnate Freddy Heineken and that of his daughter Charlene appear in the address book of Jeffrey Epstein - an American multimillionaire accused of large-scale child sex abuse who committed suicide in his jail cell earlier this month. What has since become known as "Epstein's black book" contains the names, addresses and contact numbers of an endless list of celebrities, princes, CEOs, and athletes.
Aug 22 '19 12:50
The Public Prosecution Service is not displeased that Minister Grapperhaus of Justice and Security is meeting with the Prime Minister of Thailand to see if he can get Dutch coffeeshop owner Johan van Laarhoven extradited to the Netherlands, the Prosecutor said in a statement. Van Laarhoven is currently serving a prison sentence of 103 years in Thailand.
Aug 22 '19 10:20
The Dutch government plans to set up a fund containing billions of euros as a buffer to guarantee economic growth in the Netherlands, the Telegraaf reports based on sources. The amount to go in this fund has not yet been decided, but according to the newspaper, the amount of 50 billion euros is circulating on the Binnenhof.
Aug 22 '19 09:13
Dutch media are filing summary proceedings against the court in Limburg and the municipality of Brunssum in an attempt to force more freedom of the press around the investigation into Nicky Verstappen's death. This is partly due to a review of the case planned for Tuesday that is not accessible to any journalists, NU.nl reports.
Aug 22 '19 08:37
A niqab-wearing woman filed a complaint against the Diakonessenhuis hospital in Utrecht, saying that she was refused treatment and repeatedly asked by security to remove her niqab, the Telegraaf reports.
Aug 22 '19 08:05
The Netherlands is willing to send a naval ship to the Strait of Hormuz near Iran to protect oil tankers against attacks, as the United States requested, but only if this happens in a European context, the Telegraaf reports based on sources in The Hague.
Aug 21 '19 15:40
It is almost two months to Brexit and amidst the chaos Jimme Jardine has a solution to help pass the time.
Enter Barmy Brexiteers, “a light-hearted card game and hard-hitting Twitter news account that strive to keep pointing out the lies about Brexit that are most obviously dishonest,” according to the Amsterdam-based founder.
Aug 21 '19 14:50
Dutch-Australian human rights activist Jan Ruff-O'Herne died at the age of 96 in the Australian city of Adelaide. Ruff-O'Herne was the first of the so-called "comfort women" to openly tell how she was used as a sex slave by Japanese soldiers in a military run "comfort station" during World War II, NOS reports.
Aug 21 '19 11:30
Thousands of Dutch are seemingly planning to say "goodbye" to the United Kingdom with a beach party on Strand Wijk Aan Zee on October 31st - the date of the Brexit, according to an event created on Facebook. The event initiator invites everyone to bring a beach chair, Dutch chips, French wine and German beer and watch across the sea as Great Britain wakes up as a "closed institution".
Aug 21 '19 09:31
Angela Kempeners, a 36-year-old Limburg woman who was removed from an Arriva bus in Stein on Monday because she was wearing a niqab, is shaken by the event, but will continue to take the bus to work. "I felt just like a black person in the United States. This really hit me", she said to newspaper Trouw.
Aug 19 '19 18:00
Populist party FvD was surprised by the news that two of its Senators - Jeroen de Vries and Dorien Rookmaker - are leaving the party to form a new party with recently expelled FvD member Henk Otten. FvD leader Thierry Baudet and other high-ups in the party heard about it in the newspapers. "It is unfortunate that this is how it is and not fun of course, but I think the damage is not so bad for us", Baudet said in a first reaction to NRC.
Aug 19 '19 10:10
Prime Minister Mark Rutte was a guest on the Villa Lowlands talk show at the Lowlands festival in Biddinghuizen on Sunday - the first time ever that a Dutch Prime Minister visited the festival, according to Het Parool. Rutte called it "a successful Lowlands debut" on Twitter afterwards.
Dressed in a gray polo shirt, jeans and blue All Star sneakers, the Prime Minister was taken on a tour of the festival before being interviewed by presenters Roel Maalderink and Martijn de Greve.
Aug 19 '19 08:49
Senator Henk Otten, who was expelled from populist party FvD three weeks ago, is starting his own party and he is taking two other FvD Senators with him. Otten was spotted having a "founding meeting" with Senators Jeroen de Vries and Dorien Rookmaker on a hotel terrace in Zwolle, De Telegraaf reports.
Aug 16 '19 14:20
After a nice summer break, the Dutch government is back at work. The Ministers will meet for the first time again on Friday, to catch up on current affairs under the leadership of Prime Minister Mark Rutte during the Council of Ministers, Hart van Nederland reports.
The only Minister still on holiday is Ferdinand Grapperhaus, who stood in for Rutte during the summer and still has some vacation days to catch up on.
Aug 16 '19 12:40
Albert Gietelink, a 92-year-old man from Almelo, received an award at the Russian embassy in The Hague this week because of a letter he wrote to Russian president Vladimir Putin a few months ago. He wrote the letter because he wants the relationship between Russia and the West to improve. "It is actually sad that 74 years after defeating Nazi Germany we still have a hostile relationship with Russia", he said after receiving his award on Wednesday, RTV Oost reports.
Aug 16 '19 10:08
A record number of 101 Dutch municipalities currently have a female mayor. That means that 29 percent of mayors in the Netherlands are women, BNR reports based on figures requested from the Dutch Society of Mayors.
In 2017, the Netherlands counted 81 female mayors. The increase since then, combined with the reduced number of municipalities as a result of municipal redivision, brought the share of female mayors up to 29 percent. The Netherlands currently has 355 municipalities.
Aug 16 '19 09:50
Princess Christina died at the age of 72 at the Noordeinde Palace in The Hague on Friday morning, the Royal Family announced through government information service RVD on Friday. The Princess was diagnosed with bone cancer in 2017.
The Princess' body will be transferred to the Koepel van Fagel on the grounds of the Noordeinde Palace, where her family and friends will say their goodbyes in private. Princess Christina's cremation will also take place in private.
Aug 15 '19 15:10
A woman from Asten found a very peculiar coin when she emptied out her purse after her vacation on Wednesday. A 2-euro coin, with the image of Princess Beatrix on it, that had also been minted with an image of an eagle with a swastika under it, De Gelderlander reports.
Aug 15 '19 08:15
The Amsterdam police will investigate how information about the arrest of mayor Femke Halsema's 15-year-old son leaked to newspaper De Telegraaf. The investigation will be conducted by the Security, Integrity and Complaints Office of the Amsterdam police unit, AD reports.
Aug 14 '19 15:20
The victims of the Second World War in the former Dutch East Indies were commemorated in the building of the Tweede Kamer, the lower house of Dutch parliament, on Wednesday. The presidents of the Eerste Kamer and Tweede Kamer, Jan Anthonie Bruijn and Khadija Arib, placed a wreath at the memorial plaque in the building, NOS reports.
The commemoration consisted of a short ceremony, with speeches by Arib and others, and a minute of silence.
Aug 14 '19 14:30
The police and Public Prosecution Service released a joint statement denying that the arrest of Amsterdam mayor Femke Halsema's 15-year-old son was kept quiet or covered up. The boy has not been charged with burglary, but did have a fake weapon with him when he was arrested last month, lawyer Peter Plasman, who is representing the boy, said in an interview with newspaper AD.
