Ireland

The Netherlands will play against Germany in one of its qualifying matches for the UEFA Euro 2020. UEFA announced the groups for the qualifiers on Sunday. The Netherlands drew Germany, Northern Ireland, Estonia and Belarus.

The qualifiers will start on March 21st next year. The top two teams from each of the ten groups will qualify. An additional play-off will then determine the four remaining teams who will play in the tournament. 

The Netherlands is one of the countries that will be most negatively affected in the event of a so-called 'hard' Brexit - if the United Kingdom leaves the European Union without trade agreements. Only Ireland will be hit harder, the International Monetary Fund calculates, NU.nl reports.

According to the IMF, a hard Brexit can cost the Netherlands 0.7 percent of its national income. Ireland will see a decrease of 4 percent.

The Amsterdam police arrested eight men in the Dutch capital on Wednesday in a large drug investigation with the Irish authorities. The suspects, four Dutch men, three Irish men and a Belgian, were arrested in different locations throughout the capital, the police said in a statement on Wednesday.

The police also seized over 150 thousand euros in cash, 175 kilograms of soft drugs, and a computer that generates bitcoins from two homes in Amsterdam Zuidoost. 

Two devastating natural phenomena in Ireland, Spain and Portugal had a beautiful effect on the Netherlands. The effects of Hurricane Ophelia over Ireland and the forest fires in Spain and Portugal, turned the morning sun in the Netherlands into a beautiful fireball red-orange on Tuesday.

The Netherlands is the number one choice in the world for multinationals to funnel money into tax havens, according to a study done by researchers at the University of Amsterdam. The researchers concluded that 23 percent of capital flows through the Netherlands go towards tax havens, ANP reports.

Britain comes in second place with 14 percent, followed by Switzerland with 6 percent, Singapore with 2 percent and Ireland with 1 percent. Together these five countries account for nearly half of the money globally funneled towards tax havens. 

Dutch railway company NS is circumventing the Dutch Tax Authorities using its subsidiary Abellio in Ireland, Trouw reported on Thursday. According to the newspaper, the Ministry of Finance previously instructed NS to stop these tax evasion practices.

Abellio set up an Irish company called Disa Assets Limited late last year, according to documents from the Irish Chamber of Commerce. NS used this company to fund trains for a tender on the German track. According to the newspaper, the sole purpose of this new subsidiary is to pay as little tax as possible.

The Irish police managed to stop an assassination attempt on Amsterdam gang leader Naoufal F. last week. The Amsterdam criminal is in custody in Ireland on suspicion of possession of fake documents and soft drugs, AT5 reports. 

According to local newspaper Sunday World, there were plans to assassinate F. in a prison in Dublin. The Irish police tipped the prison staff about the plans and they moved F. immediately. This happened on Thursday, according to the newspaper.

A Dutch man is one of four suspects against whom a Brazilian judge issued an international arrest warrant on Monday. The four work at a company suspected of committing fraud in the sale of tickets for the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro

The Public Prosecutor in the Netherlands submitted a request to Ireland for the extradition of Naoufal F., his lawyer confirmed

Facebook and revenge porn victim Chantal from Werkendam reached a settlement regarding which investigators Facebook will allow access to their systems. This means that the court will not have to rule on the matter on Friday, both Facebook and crime reporter Peter R. de Vries announced on Thursday.

Fans of mixed martial arts in the Netherlands will likely rejoice next year as one of the leading MMA promotion companies, Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) plans to promote their events heavily in the Netherlands. “Holland is a key market for us and it’s somewhere we want to be,” new UFC vice-president and EMEA general manager James Elliot told MMAfighting.com.