Professional interpreters and translators play an important role in courts and police investigations. However, justice minister Ferd Grapperhaus’s decision to downgrade the professional requirements to ‘secondary school levels’, is not a good idea, says certified translator and interpreter Roemer Leushuis. International crime and the flow of refugees have led to a greater need for professional interpreters and translators. The Dutch government claims it is unable to meet that need. Is there really a lack of professionals, and if so, how... More >

DutchNews.nl receives a lot of correspondence from readers, sometimes looking for help in tracing lost relatives, sometimes to share experiences of the Netherlands in years gone by. But this email, from reader Joost Goedkoop in the US, is different. In the summers of 1965 and 1966 I worked on Dutch freighters sailing the Caribbean Seas. The shipping line, KNSM, had beautiful little freighters with routes from Amsterdam to NYC, that continued on to Miami, Puerto Rico, St Maartin, Curacao, Bonaire,... More >

The March elections are not a run race, says columnist Syp Wynia, and the current incumbent Mark Rutte may not last the course. As the country is coming out of lockdown, politicians are jostling for position for the next general elections in March, or perhaps sooner if the coalition should fall. Prime ministerMark Rutte looks to be in poll position but more than one politician has fallen at the last hurdle. At the moment Rutte is not even officially in... More >

The SGP and D66 are not often on the same page but party leaders Kees van der Staaij and Rob Jetten agree on one thing: our constitutional rights have to be taken seriously, particularly in times of crisis. The near future has been named by prime minister Mark Rutte as ‘the new normal’. The question that immediately needs to be asked is: just how normal is this? We think the new normal is not normal at all, and, indeed, must... More >

The Dutch economy is heading for heavy weather if the government doesn’t promote the economy of tomorrow, say economists Rick van der Ploeg and Willem Vermeend. The Netherlands is one of the countries whose economy will be hardest hit by the coronavirus crisis. Its open economy and dependence on now faltering trade are bringing economic shrinkage and soaring unemployment in its wake. More and more countries are taking measures to get their stagnant economies moving again. But while other EU... More >

Leiden resident Brandon Hartley has taken to counting cats on his daily walk but has failed to tackle that list of chores that he had planned to do in coronavirus time. On a random afternoon before the whole world pretty much ground to a halt, my partner Marie and I met up with some friends for lunch at ‘Vooraf en Toe’. It’s a lively cafe in the centre of Leiden. It was packed as usual. Despite the upbeat atmosphere, the... More >

Judges are not stepping into the role of politicians as some on the right would claim, says professor Barbara Oomen. Rather, they are simply doing what they have been appointed to do. Earlier this month, MPs discussed the latest term Forum voor Democratie leader Thierry Baudet had unearthed from his political philosophy handbook: dichastocracy. The notion of government by judges is not something the average citizen, scientists and politician is overly concerned about but it would be wrong to dismiss... More >

The coalition government should stop kowtowing to right-wing politicians and concentrate on tackling social inequality, say Leiden professor Leo Lucassen. Now that the dust has settled on the latest ‘refugee crisis’ the conclusion has to be that the predicted, sometimes apocalyptic, consequences have failed to materialise. Societies in Western Europe have not been disrupted and in Germany, the country which has taken in most refugees by far, most of the 1.2 million immigrants are in work. There are, of course,... More >

Democracy is the safeguard of prosperity. We tamper with it at our peril, warns Coen Teulings, professor of Economics, Institutions and Society at Utrecht University.  From Roman times until the 19th century the average standard of living remained virtually unchanged, and differences in prosperity between countries were minimal as well. We know this thanks to the work done by economic historians Paul Bairoch and Angus Maddison. Around 1830 the income in ‘the West’ (Western Europe, North America and Japan) was... More >

Judges laying down the law to politicians? It should not be allowed, says columnist Syp Wynia. Politicians are worried. Increasingly, the courts are telling them what to do. In the normal course of things, MPs make laws and ministers and junior ministers carry them out. The courts step in when people break these laws. It no longer works like that. Last year the judges of the Council of State decided that Dutch nitrogen emissions policy does not comply with European... More >

Immigration might be a hot topic at the moment but the Netherlands should limit labour migration at its peril, warns economist Mathijs Bouman. Do you sometimes get the feeling there’s not enough elbow room in the Netherlands? If the national statistics office CBS is right, it will only get more crowded in the next 30 years. There are currently some 17.4 million people living in this country. By 2050 that number will have gone up to 19.3 million. It’s a... More >

It’s not that long ago that we had political parties on the right and political parties on the left. In 2020 we seem have a consolidation of parties in the middle and the rest are kept on the fringes, says columnist Syp Wynia.   It’s become common among politicians in the last few years to characterise all parties which have governed at one time or another, or which are considered eligible to take up that responsibility, as occupying ‘the middle... More >

The government has declared war on the self-employed, says freelance writer and translator Natasha Cloutier. On Thursday, a long-awaited report commissioned by the Dutch government on the future of the labour market has basically stated that the Netherlands’ 1.3 million self-employed need to be eliminated from the workforce. Many freelance jobs such as the healthcare professional who provides elderly care based on a personalised budget or a musician playing alongside employee-colleagues in an orchestra would therefore no longer be able... More >

The experiences of a young Brexit escapee trying to find a place to live in Amsterdam have proved quite an eye-opener. When your own offspring have flown the nest, the rooms they have left behind collect all manner of waifs and strays who need a place to stay. The longest was with us for almost a year while she found her feet after 15 years away from the Netherlands, but most stay a few days while they InterRail around Europe... More >

It’s time for the media and politicians to overcome their pessimism about integration, says Leiden professor Leo Lucassen. Twenty years ago the Netherlands witnessed the rise of Pim Fortuyn. In the wake of his death on May 6 2002, his party Lijst Pim Fortuyn (LPF) scored 26 seats in the elections. Many were taken completely by surprise by the massive win and the social discontent about immigration and integration that was at the bottom of it. Journalists and commentators, as... More >