The Netherlands goes to the polls in a month's time to elect 570 new members for the 12 provincial councils and campaigning is now beginning in earnest. The provinces receive money from central government to manage nature areas, oversee provincial transport issues and promote the arts and culture, but their most significant task is electing the 75 members of the senate. The current coalition government has a slim majority in in the current upper house of parliament but this is certain to disappear when the new senate is chosen by provincial councillors on May 27. This means the government will have to rely on the help of opposition parties to get controversial legislation approved. The first televised debate between six campaign leaders took place on Sunday. The opposition parties in that debate made it clear they will not support legislation they do not approve of and will try to force the government to make compromises. 'They think they will be able to break the might of the cabinet next month, because they are making big gains in the polls,' NOS reporter Ron Fresen said. Climate In particular, climate change is emerging as a key issue, even though this is not a job for the provincial governments, with both GroenLinks leader Paul Rosenmoller and Jesse Klaver of GroenLinks calling for a carbon tax for heavy industry. Europe too came on board during the debate. Henk Otten, leading the campaign for the anti-immigration Forum for Democracy, was forced to say the party is 'not after a Nexit for the sake of it', contradicting earlier statements by party leader Thierry Baudet. Elections for the European parliament take place on May 23. Who can vote Only Dutch nationals can vote in the provincial elections on March 20, but the waterboard elections, which take place on the same day, are open to everyone living officially in the Netherlands. The 21 water boards (waterschappen) regulate how public money is spent on ensuring a clean water supply and making sure the country does not flood.  More >

PVV leader Geert Wilders has called for the Dutch constitution to be changed to ban people with more than one passport from voting or standing for office. Wilders's demand was aimed squarely at the minority rights party Denk, which has clashed repeatedly with the anti-Islam PVV in parliament since its three members were elected two years ago. 'They are sitting here because they are Dutch, but it is crystal clear to everybody that they mainly represent Turkish interests. They are the biggest defenders of Erdogan's regime in the Netherlands,' he told MPs as he submitted a bill to strip dual nationals of voting rights. However, the PVV is unlikely to get its way, as amending the constitution is a complex procedure involving two votes in both houses of parliament, either side of a general election. The second vote must be passed by a two-thirds majority. Wilders said his bill applied equally to everyone with a second nationality, but freely admitted it was driven by partisan motives. 'If we could remove all members of Denk from the lower house, every local council and provincial assembly, where they have dual nationality, that would be a tremendous result for this law,' he said. Denk leader Tunahan Kuzu retorted by claiming that Wilders had spent more time in recent months at the Israeli embassy than in the Dutch parliament. 'What counts is the behaviour that people exhibit,' he said. 'We've seen he's been unable to silence us in parliament, so now he's trying to do it via the constitution and that won't succeed either,' Kuzu added.        More >

The foreign affairs ministry is increasingly confident that talks about who is responsible for shooting down flight MH17 in 2014 will take place in the near future, the NRC said on Friday. 'We are in touch with Russia about the responsibility issue via diplomatic channels,' a spokesman said. 'We are increasingly confident that we will soon get round the table with the Russians.' Earlier broadcaster RTL reported that Dutch, Australian and Russian diplomatics, civil servants and lawyers would soon meet to discuss the issue. Last May, the Netherlands and Australia said they were holding Russia officially responsible for the disaster, in which 298 people died. Flight MH17 was travelling from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur when it was shot down over Eastern Ukraine. The official investigators say the Buk missile which brought down the plane was fired by a weapons system in the hands of a Russian brigade. Russia has consistently denied any involvement.  More >