We pick over the bones of the election that had just about everything … apart from a result. Jetten just about edges out Wilders, Yesilgöz snatches defeat from the jaws of catastrophe, Bontenbal and Eerdmans console themselves with huge gains and Van Hijum starts browsing brochures for Sint Eustatius. Eight so-called sovereign citizens are charged with forming a senior citizens' terror cell. Amsterdam sells itself short with its 750th birthday cake. And in sport, Katwijk's goalkeeper suffers fro...
Oct 31, 2025•1 hr 15 min
D66 look set to become the largest party in the new Dutch parliament in a shock result that sees Geert Wilders' far-right PVV lose a dozen seats. The VVD do better than expected and finish ahead of GroenLinks-PvdA – whose leader Frans Timmermans announced his resignation after we recorded the podcast – and the CDA. With Rob Jetten likely to get first dibs on forming a coalition and at least two viable options, the coalition building process may be more straightforward than expected. And we look ...
Oct 29, 2025•34 min
Clip from October 10 Dutch News podcast on the rise of D66 in the election campaign
Oct 29, 2025•4 min
A low-key election campaign staggers into its final days with a flurry of minor squabbles about refugee centres, religious schools and whether the animal rights party is too pro-human. House prices could be peaking as private landlords sell off their rental properties. A crisis looms in the German car industry after China hits back at the Dutch government's takeover of Nexperia. Eurostar sends double-decker trains into London, but too late to save Ajax fans from witnessing a horror show against ...
Oct 24, 2025•1 hr 23 min
In the absence of Geert Wilders, the election debates kick off with an evening of shadow boxing between four parties who could all end up in government together. The Dutch government removes the CEO of a Chinese-based chip manufacturer, but was Washington pulling the strings? Rotterdam's Cape Verde community celebrates as the tiny African country makes it to the World Cup for the first time. And the city's rat catchers have an unlikely ally in their fight to control the rodent population.
Oct 17, 2025•56 min
The election campaign heats up with rumours of a meltdown in the VVD, Henri Bontenbal being roasted on the dance floor and Volt blowing a fuse over the radio debates. Dutch universities speak out against budget cuts after slipping further down the international league table. Police announce a breakthrough in the investigation into the murder of a 19-year-old Hungarian sex worker. Forest rangers crack down on illegal mushroom picking in Brabant. And can Dick Advocaat round off his footballing ody...
Oct 10, 2025•1 hr 3 min
The election campaign gets off to an ominous start as Amsterdam puts up billboards with an American accent and Geert Wilders goes rage-canvassing on Twitter. The government bows to pressure to allow a handful of wounded children from Gaza to be flown to the Netherlands for treatment, while coming under pressure to stop sending fighter jet parts to Israel. You'll need a big pile of capital if you want to buy the house in Overijssel where Karl Marx wrote large parts of his seminal work. And in spo...
Oct 04, 2025•1 hr
The eruption of far-right violence in The Hague destroys the fragile hopes of a civil, constructive election campaign. Housing minister Mona Keijzer keeps Marjolein Faber's legacy alive by ploughing on with her asylum policies in the face of a withering assessment by the Council of State. More than 40% of voters say Gaza will influence their choice on October 29 and half want tougher sanctions against Israel. The Dutch Rugby Union decides to allow trans players in women's teams. And Rotterdam's ...
Sep 26, 2025•1 hr 10 min
Prinsjesdag is usually a day to delight fashion fans and financial nerds, but this year's edition fell short on both fronts as the parties got stuck into the election campaign. Train strikes are called off after unions agree a pay deal, but Schiphol is facing more disruption. Newly discovered CCTV footage could cast a different light on the violence that surrounded the Ajax-Maccabi Tel Aviv football match last November. And we reveal the secret recipe that could untie your tongue if you're strug...
Sep 19, 2025•1 hr 15 min
Usually Treasury Tuesday is the high point of September, but this year it was overshadowed by Super Saturday, when Dutch politicians stood up on a conference stage and said who they didn't want to form a coalition with. Foreign affairs minister David van Weel asks the Russian ambassador how 19 drones veered into Polish airspace, just as the VVD abruptly changes course on sanctions against Israel. A group of radicalised boomers are accused of plotting to blow up the Nato summit and the mayor of L...
Sep 12, 2025•1 hr 2 min
The podcast returns with a look back to a summer in which the government managed the unprecedented feat of collapsing for a second time. The political parties' manifestos are dominated by the issues of housing, immigration and how to sweep up the NSC vote. The brutal murder of a 17-year-old girl in Amsterdam becomes fodder for the far right when an asylum seeker is accused of the crime. Vitesse Arnhem are given another reprieve in the long-running saga of their imminent decline. A painting loote...
Sep 04, 2025•1 hr 16 min
In a hilarious and intricate farce set in The Hague, Geert Wilders plays a man who wakes up every morning unable to remember if he still supports his own asylum bill. Another victim of Wilders' amnesia, singer Douwe Bob, has to flee the country when Dilan Yesilgöz forms a strike partnership with a pro-Israeli football hooligan. PFAS "forever chemicals" are set to join nitrogen compounds and CO2 on the list of pollutants that the Netherlands firmly resolves to do nothing about. And in sport, the ...
Jul 04, 2025•1 hr 6 min
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
