CDA

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.

After months of negotiations, the coalition parties reached an agreement on how to arrange custody for families with more than two parents and surrogacy by law. Dutch kids will soon be able to legally have up to four parents, and the rights of surrogates and the parents who use them will be laid down in law, RTL Nieuws reports based on a draft letter to parliament in its possession. 

The Council of Ministers will discuss the proposal on Friday. 

Dutch PM: Misinformation from Russia will neither impact, nor tarnish the investigation.

Russia: No evidence to support "groundless" investigation claim.

Former CDA Prime Minister Dries van Agt had a stroke two weeks ago, his family confirmed. "We were shocked, it was stressful for a few days. Fortunately there is now recovery. My father is conscious, his mental capacities are not affected", the 88-year-old politician's daughter Eugenie van Agt said, De Stentor reports.

"Physically, he had a major blow", Eugenie continued. The left side of Van Agt's body was affected by the stroke. "The doctors are cautiously optimistic, but it is clear that he will need a lot of rest and intense rehabilitation."

The man convicted of killing Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn in 2002 planned to file accusations of defamation against politicians Han ten Broeke and Madeleine van Toorenburg. Volkert van der G. said the two political insiders went too far when they claimed he violated the conditions of his early release from prison, his lawyer Willem Jebbink said in a press release issued Tuesday.

Almost all the votes in the European Parliament elections have been counted. As exit polls predicted, the PvdA is the big winner in the Netherlands. While the exit polls said Labour would get five seats, the party now stands at six. Populist PVV and socialists SP walk away with no seats, RTL Nieuws reports. 

Pieter Heerma was appointed to fulfill the position of CDA party chairman in the Tweede Kamer, the lower house of Dutch parliament. He is succeeding Sybrand Buma, who will be taking a new post as the mayor of Leeuwarden in the summer, NOS reports

Immediately after his appointment, Heerma said that he has no ambition to become party leader. "I am not here from a huge personal ambition, but mainly from a sense of duty", Heerma said.

The Ministry of Justice and Security hid the number of serious crimes committed by asylum seekers in the Netherlands by including crimes like sexual offenses, aggravated assaults, and murder and manslaughter or attempts thereto under the heading of "other" in figures released to parliament, the Telegraaf reports.

Minister Sander Dakker for Legal Protection acknowledged in a parliamentary debate on Wednesday that he bears political responsibility for mistakes made in the treatment of Michael P., the man who raped and murdered 25-year-old Anne Faber from Utrecht in 2017. At the same time he asked parliament to trust him to also solve the problems. He survived the debate, NU.nl reports.

"I feel the responsibility in my every fiber", Dekker said. "One of my most important tasks is to protect society from people like Michael P." 

Voter turnout was up substantially in the country's provincial election on Wednesday, compared with turnout in 2015. Some 57.9 percent of eligible voters showed up at polling places, up from 47.8 percent four years earlier, according to RTL Nieuws.

On Tuesday evening the 13 political party leaders responded to the shooting in Utrecht, in which three people were killed and three seriously injured, at the start of the last political debate before the Provincial States elections on Wednesday. PVV leader Geert Wilders and FvD leader Thierry Baudet decided to use their moment to blame the attack on Prime Minister Mark Rutte (VVD) and CDA leader Sybrand Buma, linking the shooting to the Netherlands' immigration and integration policy, NOS reports.