Mark Rutte's plan to treat Donald Trump like Orange royalty paid dividends at the Nato summit in The Hague. Specifically 5% dividends, as the 32 nations agreed to raise their defence spending with a definition of "vital infrastructure" as elastic as Rutte's spine. Geert Wilders' PVV party threatens to sabotage its own asylum bill in protest at the other parties undermining Marjolein Faber's "brilliant" plans. Housing minister Mona Keijzer believes darker hallways and even steeper staircases are ...
Jun 27, 2025•1 hr 23 min
The election campaign gathers pace as Dilan Yesilgöz goes on the attack against GroenLinks-PvdA while also slamming the door on another coalition with Geert Wlders' PVV. NSC narrowly avoids descending into chaos as one of the contenders in the race to lead the party into electoral oblivion drops out. Meanwhile, Dick Schoof secures a mandate to raise defence spending ahead of next week's Nato summit with the support of Frans Timmermans. Amsterdam city council is criticised for letting disinformat...
Jun 20, 2025•1 hr 10 min
After a week of strategic bickering between the coalition parties, Dick Schoof brokers a deal to split the asylum ministry three ways, making it less fragmented than it was under Marjolein Faber. Amsterdam unveils a plan to get international workers to speak Dutch and get involved in community work, in the hope that the locals will follow suit. Eurostar celebrates its new expanded service in a deserted Amsterdam Central Station after NS workers go on strike again. And in football, Tijjani Reijnd...
Jun 13, 2025•1 hr 3 min
In the most unsurprising plot twist since James Cameron's Titanic, the Dutch cabinet collapsed this week when Geert Wilders walked out in protest at his own asylum policy. With an election almost five months away, we ask if Dick Schoof's lame-duck cabinet can make more waves on defence, housing and immigration. Meanwhile, Mark Rutte has to figure out a seating plan at the Nato summit dinner that stops a food fight breaking out between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy. A regional train strike...
Jun 06, 2025•1 hr 4 min
Eleven months after Dick Schoof's cabinet took office and 10½ months later than expected, the Dutch cabinet has collapsed after Geert Wilders pulled out of the four-way right-wing coalition. We look at how he managed to stir up a full-scale row over immigration with three parties that agreed with him and how the other parties were left wrong footed. And we ask how voters will respond to Wilders' gamble in the upcoming elections – whenever they may be.
Jun 03, 2025•50 min
The capital's 750th birthday celebrations get off to a chaotic start, while Ajax lose the title and their Italian coach in the space of a week. Foreign affairs minister Caspar Veldkamp has more success in Europe, forcing the EU to investigate Israel's aid blockade in Gaza. Auditors skewer the government's spending plans, while the IMF sticks the knife into the koopkrachtplaatjes. And was a motley crew of Dutch bikers and Romanian mobsters behind the Drents Museum heist?
May 23, 2025•53 min
Pressure mounts on the Dutch cabinet to denounce Israel's destruction of Gaza, with the mayor of Amsterdam, universities and even PVV voters growing increasingly critical. Scientists warn that Donald Trump's cuts to academic research are hampering their ability to work with American colleagues. The Netherlands could face water shortages as climate change and economic pressures take their toll. No green room drama for the Dutch at Eurovision this year as Claude safely makes it through to the fina...
May 16, 2025•1 hr 2 min
Foreign minister Casper Veldkamp finally draws a red line over Israel's intervention in Gaza, but will it be the fault line that ruptures the coalition? The conflict is also the focus of protests at ceremonies to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War. But at least one of the coalition parties has something to celebrate, as MEPs vote to downgrade the protected status of the wolf. And the close-knit fishing community of Urk launches a scheme to find former residents who were...
May 09, 2025•1 hr 4 min
As the economy cools, the cabinet burns through its green energy fund to bail out fossil fuel users and torch its climate change targets. The debate on who should be included in the May 4 commemorations flares up again as an alternative ceremony to include the victims of Gaza is condemned by some politicians. Geert Wilders claims victory as his asylum minister's policies apparently drive down refugee numbers in the whole of Europe before they've even been implemented. Indoor football is rocked b...
May 02, 2025•1 hr 10 min
The passing of Pope Francis managed to put the king's birthday birthday celebrations and Pieter Omtzigt's dramatic departure from politics in the shade this week. The coalition leaders emerged from a marathon negotiation session with a spring budget deal designed to please everyone except the taxpayers. Intelligence services accuse Iran of planning a botched assassination, Russia of sabotaging European elections and China of industrial espionage. And Belgian goalkeeper is the toast of Deventer a...
Apr 25, 2025•1 hr 5 min
An Easter egg scramble begins in The Hague as ministers try to grab a morsel of the €8 billion available in his spring budget statement. The Binnenhof's history as a medieval palace turns out to be even longer and richer than we suspected. Academics at Dutch universities face extra screening to prevent them stealing scientific knowledge, while students are warned about a rise in rent scams. Dutch badminton players fear for the future of the sport after its funding is slashed. And a coot's nest t...
Apr 10, 2025•1 hr 7 min
Once again Marjolein Faber confounds critics and partners alike with her bottomless talent for turning a storm in a teacup into a political maelstrom. Dick Schoof insists his cabinet is united behind his decision to clean up the mess caused by Faber's refusal to honour five volunteers for working with refugees. Elsewhere, a majority of MPs back a ban on street fireworks while prisons minister Ingrid Coenradie steers through her controversial early release scheme. The UK extends its electronic tr...
Apr 03, 2025•1 hr 11 min
This week it was the turn of the immigration service and the justice inspectorate to take Marjolein Faber to task over her unravelling immigration plans. Amsterdam is shocked as five people are stabbed in an apparently random attack near Dam Square. Travellers to the United States are warned about Donald Trump's backward shift on LBGT rights. PSV have to quarantine their new Spanish striker after the player is diagnosed with tuberculosis. And wolves, badgers and house cats are all blamed for wre...
Mar 28, 2025•1 hr 6 min
Dick Schoof heads to Brussels for a defence spending summit with orders to pull the emergency brake on the Eurobonds train. Back in The Hague, the PVV holds its own prisons minister hostage over her plans to solve the overcrowding problem in jails. And the education minister wants to attract foreign talent to universities that are cutting down on international students and English-language classes. Intelligence agencies are pushing the boundaries by gathering information in secret for law enforc...
Mar 21, 2025•1 hr 4 min
The latest crisis to engulf Dick Schoof's cabinet sees three coalition parties vote against the prime minister on Europe's rearmament plan to support Ukraine. GroenLinks-PvdA speed up plans for a merger, almost as if they expect an early election. JA21 MP Joost Eerdmans, a PVV councillor and Groningen's former mayor all get into difficulty in their cars. The government wants to tighten up regulations on vaping while Amsterdam steps up restrictions on Airbnb. And while Dutch athletes sweep the bo...
Mar 14, 2025•1 hr 2 min
There's no such thing as an unqualified success in Dick Schoof's coalition of the unwilling. The prime minister steers a €3.5bn aid package to Ukraine through parliament, but faces accusations of a stitch-up from Geert Wilders. Marjolein Faber's asylum plans are finally signed off in cabinet but are likely to meet stiff resistance in the Senate. Police investigate whether a devastating fire that destroyed some of the few historic buildings in Arnhem that survived the war was started deliberately...
Mar 08, 2025•1 hr 1 min
An €8 billion windfall turns out to be a poisoned chalice for the cabinet as the coalition parties start scrambling for a piece of the pie. The four parties can't agree on how to mark the third anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which is also the subject of Marjolein Faber's latest faux pas. More freelancers are going out of business and more couples are working part-time as changes to the tax system take effect. Schiedam is in shock as a 13-year-old boy is charged with stabbing ano...
Feb 28, 2025•1 hr 8 min
The mission to realise the "strictest asylum policy ever" takes another twist as housing minister Mona Keijzer bans local councils from giving refugees priority housing while Marjolein Faber gives them a €30,000 incentive to do exactly that. Women's rights, higher education and Unicef are no longer relevant to the Dutch national interest, Reinette Klever declares as she slashes development aid funding. A cabinet crisis on Ukraine is averted when Geert Wilders waters down his opposition to sendin...
Feb 21, 2025•59 min
As Karl Marx once observed, history repeats itself: the first time as tragedy, the second as farce, the third as Marjolein Faber's asylum policy. The cabinet is on the brink of collapse for the umpteenth time as Geert Wilders blames NSC for his favourite minister's failure to cut any ice with the Council of State. Gelderland province also hits a legal wall in its efforts to fire paintball pellets at wolves. The United Nations special rapporteur on Gaza is cancelled by self-proclaimed advocates o...
Feb 14, 2025•42 min
The BBB is the latest coalition party to be plunged into crisis as an MP quits and the local party in its Overijssel heartland splits over "irreconcilable differences". The three face mask millionaires are told to pay back their ill-gotten gains in a judgment that is scathing of the health ministry's carefree attitude to spending public money. Brussels condemns the Dutch government's failure to tackle nitrogen pollution yet again, this time in the water supply. Marjolein Faber finally finds time...
Feb 14, 2025•1 hr 10 min
Another week, another round of infighting and backtracking in the coalition, this time over an eye-watering 0.4% increase in the rate of VAT. The Drents Museum is the reluctant star of an international heist drama stretching from Bucharest to Heerhugowaard. Calls for a fireworks ban grow louder following another rise in injuries and attacks on emergency service workers at New Year. Feyenoord fans are banned from Lille and spared the humiliation of watching their team go down 6-1. And we probe th...
Jan 31, 2025•1 hr 8 min
A hazy cloud hangs over the cabinet after it loses another court case against its nitrogen reduction policy. Marjolein Faber's latest wheeze to send asylum seekers home is a one-way trip to Damascus, with compensation for going via Brussels. Shoplifters are getting away with theft and it's down to privacy laws, says a debt collection firm that was implicated in dodgy dealings with the police. More migration woes as muskrats and wolves are invade our borders and sheds. And Brian Priske oversees a...
Jan 24, 2025•1 hr 4 min
Some people call it the most depressing day of the year: to others it's known as the return of parliament. Geert Wilders' coalition crisis roulette wheel lands on the spring budget cuts as he yet again vows not to budge an inch. The lawyer for drugs baron Ridouan Taghi is accused of abusing her privilege to run messages for her client in a case that has rocked the legal profession. Venezuela banishes Dutch diplomats in revenge for giving refuge to the opposition leader. The chair of the Elfstede...
Jan 16, 2025•1 hr 1 min
In keeping with tradition, 2025 kicked off with an explosive row about whether to ban fireworks. Pharmacists go on strike for more pay while they warn about a shortage of supplies. The wartime archives of suspected Nazi collaborators are opened up and immediately stir up a hornet's nest. Blades are sharpened in the world of figure skating as the leading Dutch pair are taken to court for not spending enough time in Eindhoven. And we announce the winner of the coveted 2024 Ophef of the Year award....
Jan 10, 2025•1 hr 6 min
It's time once again for our annual round-up of the minor incidents that got everybody hot under the collar for five minutes on social media at some point this year. And what a bumper harvest it's been. Caroline van der Plas performed a hardboiled cunning stunt in front of Geert Wilders, a man called Willie fell foul of the regulations on phallic garden ornaments and Nicky Minaj was jailed for trying to take drugs out of the Netherlands. We'll also remind you of how Brussels tried to cancel a Du...
Jan 01, 2025•53 min
Asylum minister Marjolein Faber produces her rapid-response emergency plan to deal with the urgent refugee crisis, a mere six months after taking office. Police believe the explosion in The Hague that cost the lives of six people may have been the work of an enraged ex-boyfriend. Farmers' party minister Jean Rummenie outlines his strategy on problem wolves and how to deal with them. An auction house is widely rebuked for selling a skull that may have been stolen from an African tribe. And the sp...
Dec 20, 2024•1 hr 4 min
The Hague was in shock this week after six people died in a huge blast that police believe was an attack on a bridal wear shop. A "monster alliance" wrings concessions from the coalition parties on the education budget, but universities say the cuts will still damage the sector. Enhanced border checks come into force but experts say they will make little difference, while the Council of State pours cold water on Marjolein Faber's asylum crackdown. Max Verstappen is ordered to mentor young driver...
Dec 13, 2024•1 hr 7 min
The government is running out of time to make its education budget add up as opposition parties form a "monster alliance" against its spending cuts. Sandra Palmen, who blew open the childcare benefits scandal, is put in charge of compensating the thousands of victims. Two Dutch members of a gang who smuggled cocaine in crates of onions are given eye-watering jail sentences in the UK. Drivers are warned they could lose their insurance cover if they use their phones behind the wheel. And the debat...
Dec 07, 2024•56 min
You don't need a degree in rocket science to work out that the government's higher education cuts are in deep trouble after opposition parties form a united front in the Senate against the €2 billion package. More budget headaches in Brussels as the EU raps the Netherlands over the knuckles for busting the deficit limit that it was instrumental in setting up. Integration lessons for refugees are so time-consuming that they damage their efforts to find work and participate in society, a new repor...
Nov 28, 2024•1 hr 5 min
NSC leader Pieter Omtzigt returns to The Hague to survey the tattered remains of his Nieuw Sociaal Contract party. Two MPs follow junior finance minister Nora Achahbar through the exit, complaining of a lack of basic decency in government. Another NSC minister, Caspar Veldkamp, had an awkward day in parliament as he explained the consequences of the ICC's arrest warrant against Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Environmental campaigners take Schiphol to court over its nitrogen compound ...
Nov 22, 2024•53 min
