Mayors asked to limit events to release police capacity for NATO summit in The Hague
Police chief Janny Knol has asked mayors throughout the Netherlands to “exercise restraint” in granting event permits for the period around the NATO summit in The Hague next year. He specifically asked for an “event-free period around the NATO summit” so that the “police have sufficient capacity available to ensure the smooth running of the NATO summit, in addition to their regular work.”
The NATO summit will be held in The Hague from 24 to 26 June 2025. “The nature of this summit, the complex (geopolitical) threat assessment, and its large size make its organization a major challenge,” Knol wrote in his letter to the Dutch mayors. “The NATO summit will have consequences for the available police capacity for other events in the summer of 2025.”
Dozens of heads of state, government leaders, Ministers, and their delegations will attend the summit. The police, working with the Ministry of Defense and the Koninklijke Marechaussee, will escort and secure them during their travel movements in the country. The summit itself will also be heavily secured. That demands a lot of capacity.
To ensure that the police have enough people available, police officers won’t be able to take leave in the period surrounding the summit. The police are also accelerating its plans to bring the riot police units to maximum capacity. There will be extra training and recruitment drives, and riot police officers planning to leave the unit will be asked to stay.
“It is important that we have a timely and honest discussion about the consequences of the additional police deployment,” said national commander Willem Woelders, who is responsible for the preparations for the NATO summit. “A lot is already being asked of our colleagues. Just think of all the riot police deployed at demonstrations and football matches. We look critically at our own plans for 2025 and where we can make choices. It is also important for municipalities and event organizations to already think abou the impact of this NATO summit next year.”
The police’s call will be bad news for Amsterdam events and festivals. The Dutch capital’s event calendar already has less space than usual next year due to the festivities around Amsterdam’s 750th anniversary. Festivals like Loveland, Mystic Garden, and Dockyard have criticized the city’s plan to experiment with a new way of allocating scarce event space, calling it completely unworkable.
