Want to support the DutchNews podcast and keep our stocks of drop, oude kaas and stroopwafels healthy? Click here to become a Patreon backer We digest the results of a bombshell election that turned the Senate, the provincial houses and the water boards upside down and the flags the right way up. Are the nitrogen reduction plans in disarray? Who will the BoerBurgerBeweging team up with in the provinces? And can Mark Rutte live to fight another round on Vandaag... More >

Want to support the DutchNews podcast and keep our stocks of drop, oude kaas and stroopwafels healthy? Click here to become a Patreon backer This week we do our best to explain how next week’s elections work (shout out to the water boards!), why the TV debates are between politicians who aren’t standing in them and why Mark Rutte is shadow boxing with a ‘leftist cloud’. Justice minister Dilan Yesilgöz is under pressure over failures in the crown witness protection... More >

Want to support the DutchNews podcast and keep our stocks of drop, oude kaas and stroopwafels healthy? Click here to become a Patreon backer The systematic failure to protect Groningen residents from earthquakes and witnesses in gangland trials from being murdered in broad daylight were laid bare in two damning reports this week. We unearth the village scandal behind a portrait painted by Vincent van Gogh shortly before he left his native Brabant. Inflation rises again as the official statistics... More >

Want to support the DutchNews podcast and keep our stocks of drop, oude kaas and stroopwafels healthy? Click here to become a Patreon backer No regular episode this week, because in a freakish coincidence the entire DutchNews podcast team is away, which we promise has nothing to do with the 10 Russian spies who were expelled from the Netherlands on Tuesday. So to make amends we’re releasing our summer special episode for Patreon backers that features a number of fascinating... More >

Want to support the DutchNews podcast and keep our stocks of drop, oude kaas and stroopwafels healthy? Click here to become a Patreon backer After relying on the Netherlands to help them beat the taxman, U2 appropriately hire a Dutchman to beat the drums for them in Las Vegas. There’s more smashing news on the tennis court, where two home-based players reach the quarter-finals of the ABN AMRO tournament. The VVD wins the race to become the first party to... More >

Want to support the DutchNews podcast and keep our stocks of drop, oude kaas and stroopwafels healthy? Click here to become a Patreon backer Dutch rescue workers join the international team searching the rubble of this week’s earthquake in Turkey and Syria for survivors. Back home, Mark Rutte surveys the wreckage of his asylum policy as the Council of State throws out a rule delaying family reunions. The team investigating the MH17 disaster say the chain of command went all... More >

Want to support the DutchNews podcast and keep our stocks of drop, bessenjenever and stroopwafels healthy? Click here to become a Patreon backer The distant goal of putting Russia on trial for invading Ukraine moves a step closer as a dedicated prosecutor’s office is set up in The Hague. Mark Rutte avoids a diplomatic incident as he takes French president Emmanuel Macron out to an Indonesian restaurant. The Dutch and German armies look set to integrate further, though there’s bound... More >

Want to support the DutchNews podcast and keep our stocks of drop, bessenjenever and stroopwafels healthy? Click here to become a Patreon backer A feast of ophef this week as the widow of singer André Hazes sues a juice channel presenter who called her a ‘gecremeerd kroket’ while Belgium’s prime minister gets his flags in a twist. Richard de Mos rolls up in a garish stretch limousine for the start of his trial, where he’s accused of running a criminal... More >

Want to support the DutchNews podcast and keep our stocks of drop, bessenjenever and stroopwafels healthy? Click here to become a Patreon backer Mark Rutte went to Washington this week and said the Netherlands would definitely send some weapons to Ukraine at an unspecified time in the near future. Mayors in three cities suggested digital banning orders to curb gang violence, even though they don’t know what they are, how they’d work or whether they’re even legal. Good news on... More >

Want to support the DutchNews podcast and keep our stocks of drop, bessenjenever and stroopwafels healthy? Click here to become a Patreon backer 2023 gets off to a shaky start with Gert-Jan Segers stepping down as leader of the ChristenUnie party. The cabinet’s plans to control immigration come unstuck in court, forcing asylum minister Eric van der Burg to kick the latest measures into the long grass. The looming recession has puts a dampener on the housing market as prices... More >

Want to support the DutchNews podcast and keep our stocks of drop, gin and stroopwafels healthy? Click here to become a Patreon backer Sigrid Kaag is dispatched to Paramaribo as the cabinet’s efforts to apologise for the Dutch slave trade fly into a whirlwind of recriminations. Back home, Wopke Hoekstra is shocked – shocked! – by a report exposing institutional racism at the foreign affairs ministry. Dutch Moroccan footballers, meanwhile, have no regrets as they eclipse Louis van Gaal’s Oranje... More >

Want to support the DutchNews podcast and keep our stocks of drop, gin and stroopwafels healthy? Click here to become a Patreon backer The cabinet makes a sorry spectacle of itself this week as its attempts to apologise for slavery come apart at the seams. Rabobank, a co-operative bank set up to lend to farmers, is suspected of getting its hands dirty with money laundering, financing terrorism and rigging bond deals. As the economy cools, Dutch households turn down the... More >

Want to support the DutchNews podcast and keep our stocks of drop, gin and stroopwafels healthy? Click here to become a Patreon backer A week totally devoid of plot twists includes another farmers’ protest, a pre-nuptial agreement between GroenLinks and PvdA, and a warning from the AIVD that Russia and China might be spying on us. There’s a double dose of ophef as sports minister Conny Helder leaves parliament early to fly to Qatar, then says ‘never mind’ to the... More >

Want to support the DutchNews podcast and keep our stocks of drop, gin and stroopwafels healthy? Click here to become a Patreon backer Inflation is a growing problem, and not just for the Oranje fan who was kicked out of a Qatari stadium this week for accessorising his rainbow armband with a pair of false breasts. Brussels tells finance minister Sigrid Kaag to redo her budget arithmetic as fears of a recession deepen. The Dutch government makes farmers an offer... More >

Want to support the DutchNews podcast and keep our stocks of drop, gin and stroopwafels healthy? Click here to become a Patreon backer Eight years after the shooting down of flight MH17 over Ukraine, three men are given life sentences for the murder of the 298 passengers and crew. The reality of the ongoing war was brought home for Wopke Hoekstra, who had to take shelter from Russian missiles on a visit to Kyiv. The war is also set to... More >

Want to support the DutchNews podcast and keep our stocks of drop, gin and stroopwafels healthy? Click here to become a Patreon backer Mark Rutte took a flight out of Egypt this week to fend off a mutiny in his party on asylum. It’s not just the wolves that are feasting in Gelderland as a restaurant in Nijmegen is named the best place in the world for plant-based cuisine. The government still can’t decide on a new pension scheme, and... More >

Want to support the DutchNews podcast and keep our stocks of drop, gin and stroopwafels healthy? Click here to become a Patreon backer Early November is traditionally a fruitful time for conspiracy theorists, as Guy Fawkes, David Icke and Rian van Rijbroek will testify. The RIVM admits it mixed up its numbers on nitrogen pollution just as the Council of State tells the government to redo its homework on building permits. Dutch railway operator NS cuts services and raises ticket... More >

Want to support the DutchNews podcast and keep our stocks of drop, gin and stroopwafels healthy? Click here to become a Patreon backer Wopke Hoekstra says Netherlands needs a ‘constructive’ relationship with gas-rich Qatar as he rejects parliament’s calls to boycott the upcoming World Cup. Let’s hope the relationship is constructed more carefully than the stadiums for the tournament, which cost the lives of thousands of migrant workers. Asylum minister Erik van der Burg is caught between a rock and... More >

Want to support the DutchNews podcast and keep our stocks of drop, gin and stroopwafels healthy? Click here to become a Patreon backer Inflation will stay high until next year, house prices are cooling and there’s a wave of bankruptcies on the way. 2023 looks like a good year to hide under the bedsheets, which might have inspired one prisoner this week to execute a traditional-style escape. The Groningen gas inquiry continues, but not even the collective force of a... More >

Want to support the DutchNews podcast and keep our stocks of drop, gin and stroopwafels healthy? Click here to become a Patreon backer Johan Remkes, the government’s polder tsar, works his magic again as Dutch farmers cautiously welcome his plan to buy out up to 600 of the biggest nitrogen polluters – essentially the same plan that sparked two years of furious protest. There seems little hope of reconciliation between Khadija Arib and her successor as chair of parliament, Vera... More >