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Foreign minister Stef Blok says sorry for multicultural society comments

Foreign minister Stef Blok has again spoken about his comments last month in which he said there are no successful multicultural societies and that Suriname is a failed state. Blok described his comments as ‘unfortunate’ and ‘careless’ in a note to Labour MPs who had called for an explanation. ‘I should not have done this, certainly not in my role as foreign affairs minister,’ he said. ‘I am sorry... My words were in no way meant to give racism free rein or to exclude certain population groups. Blok said earlier that he ‘regretted’ the comments, which were broadcast by current affairs show Zembla in mid July. The minister was speaking to Dutch nationals who work for international organisations and said later his remarks were aimed at stimulating debate. On Thursday, GroenLinks leader Jesse Klaver called on Mark Rutte to distance himself from Blok’s comments, saying it is incomprehensible that the prime minister has not yet done so. The issue is likely to be raised at Friday’s cabinet meeting and will come up for debate when parliament resumes in September. More >

Scrapping dividend tax will cost €2bn

The government’s controversial decision to scrap the tax on dividends will cost the economy €2bn a year rather than the earlier estimate of €1.4bn, the AD reported on Thursday. That means the treasury will have to find a further €600m to balance its 2020 spending plans, sources have told the paper. The government wants to scrap the tax in 18 months time. The move to abolish the tax will only benefit foreign firms and was not included in any of the manifestos of the four parties which form the current coalition government. Prime minister Mark Rutte believes the move may encourage more foreign firms to set up operations in the Netherlands. Opposition parties, however, have claimed that scrapping dividend tax is an economically unproductive measure and that the government bowed to threats from multinational companies such as Shell and Unilever to move their headquarters out of the Netherlands. In March Unilever announced it was closing its joint headquarters in London and basing its operations solely in Rotterdam. More >

Denk told to refund referendum cash

Political party Denk has been ordered to refund most of the subsidies it received for campaigning in the recent referendum on new phone and internet tapping laws because it was not properly spent, the AD reports. The commission in charge of monitoring how the grants were used has told Denk to refund €16,000 of the €22,229 it was awarded for campaigning. Denk, for its part, blames the online marketing agency it used for not doing a proper job. In particular, the commission said the voter research carried out by OptimusAd on behalf of the party's policy bureau Statera focused too much on Denk supporters. Denk, however, says OptimusAd did not justify its approach and delivered a very thin final report. OptimusAd denies providing shoddy work and has invited Denk, which has said it will refund the money, to talk about the problems. In total, some 200 organisations and private individuals made claims on the €2m in grants set aside to fund campaigns for and against the new law. More >

Provinces contemplate cat cull

Some 1,000 feral cats have been shot in just 3.5 years in the provinces of Friesland and Utrecht, where culling is allowed, the NRC reported on Monday. According to research conducted by the University of Wageningen, the Netherlands is home to between 135,000 and 1.2 million feral cats. The animals eat rodents, birds and insects and pose a threat to endangered species, scientists say. Friesland and Utrecht are currently the only two provinces in the Netherlands to allow the cull of cats that have become wild. According to a spokesman for the Utrecht provincial authorities, the aim of the cull is to prevent the animals from disturbing the ‘ecological balance’. The Frysian provincial authorities are mainly worried about the meadow birds, such as godwits and lapwings. Killing cats is ‘extremely unfortunate’ but ‘it’s much more unfortunate that our meadow birds are being eaten,’ said provincial councillor Johannes Kramer. Structural problem According to bird protection organisation Vogelbescherming, feral cats are a threat to birds but shooting them is not a structural solution as it doesn’t prevent more cats from becoming feral. Every holiday season cats are turned out or dumped and efforts to force owners to mark their animals with microchips have so far come to nothing. Groningen provincial authorities will vote on a cull ‘when necessary’ in December but want to focus on prevention as well. Zeeland, too, is considering a cull, the NRC said. Noord-Brabant, Flevoland, Noord- and Zuid-Holland abolished the hunt of feral cats in 2016. In Brabant some 2,853 cats were killed between 2012 and 2016. The provinces now favour a TNR - Trap, Neuter and Return - approach although that too is contentious. Infertile According to a spokesman for the Limburg provincial authorities, which did not adopt TNR, ‘the chances that sufficient animals would be made infertile so as to lower the population are slim’. Cat hunter Jan Pieter Spierenburg doubts the method will help because it does not stop the animals from hunting. The article in the NRC has prompted the Partij voor de Dieren, PVV and SP to ask agriculture minister Carola Schouten for a complete ban on culling feral cats. More >

Blok under fire for multicultural comments

Dutch foreign minister Stef Blok is under fire after making a string of controversial comments about immigrants and refugees as well as saying he is unaware of any successful multicultural societies. The comments were made by Blok at private meeting with Dutch nationals who work for international organisations. One of the participants has given television current affairs programme Zembla mobile phone footage of the event. The source, who wants to remain anonymous, told Zembla many of the participants were shocked by the minister's words. 'I have asked my ministry this and I will pose the question here as well,' Blok said. 'Give me an example of a multi-ethnic or a multi-cultural society, in which the original population still lives, and where there is a peaceful cohabitation. I don't know one.' When one member of the audience suggested Suriname, Blok described the former Dutch colony as a 'failed state'. 'And that is largely to do with the ethnic divisions,' he continued. Singapore, another example raised by the audience is 'a mini-country and highly selective in terms of immigration,' Blok said. 'It does not let in poor migrants. Well yes, to do the cleaning.' Immigration The minister also talked about xenophobia and migration. 'You very quickly reach the limits of what a society can take,' he said. 'So I would also say that I understand the people in Amsterdam West and in the Schilderswijk (a part of The Hague with a large immigrant population). If you live in Benoordenhout (a wealthy part of The Hague), it is great fun to go to the Turkish baker on Sunday. You don't have to deal with a number of side effects. But if you live right in the middle, you have an enormous amount of trouble.' The minister focused for part of his presentation on the situation of refugees in Europe. 'Walk along any street in Warsaw or Prague. There are no coloured people,' Blok said. These people are gone within a week, they get beaten to a pulp. They have no life there.' 'I don't think we are going to manage to force through an agreement at a central European level that every country will take the same number of refugees. Eastern Europeans will never agree,' the minister said. Blok told Zembla in reaction to the film that the meeting was aimed at stimulating participants to exchange views and experiences. 'My role in the Q&A session was partly to stimulate. I used examples in the closed meeting which could be unfortunate in public debate.' Reactions MPs from both the opposition and ruling coalition were quick to react to Blok’s comments. D66 MP Kees Verhoeven described them as ‘incomprehensible’ and has asked for an explanation. VVD parliamentarian Han ten Broek, said the comments were ‘crude’. Taak minister Buitenlandse Zaken is diplomatieke betrekkingen onderhouden. #D66 verwacht daarom uitleg van de minister over zijn onbegrijpelijke uitspraken en zijn pessimisme over de verdeling van vluchtelingen in Europa en de multiculturele samenleving.https://t.co/5mM3Eq3jV9 — Kees Verhoeven (@KeesVee) July 18, 2018 ‘No one will swear that Suriname is a model state or that migrants are always treated kindly in eastern Europe, but the minister could have made these points with a less crude choice of words.’ Labour MP and former foreign aid minister Lilianne Ploumen said the minister had been ‘extremely unprofessional’. She has filed parliamentary questions asking if the minister’s views on Suriname, Singapore and refugees are cabinet policy. More >

Russian trolls have little impact in Dutch

Russian-based professional trolls sent more than 900 tweets in Dutch over two years – but they had almost no impact on public debate, according to an investigation by NRC. The newspaper said it had studied more than 200,000 tweets sent from the Internet Research Agency in St Petersburg, the 'troll factory' said to have influenced the Brexit vote in the UK and the election of Donald Trump as US president. In the Netherlands, troll accounts were mainly active in discussions about Islam and immigration. The co-ordinated bombings carried out by Islamist terrorists at Brussels Airport in March 2006 sparked a series of tweets in Dutch using English hashtags such as #IslamIsTheProblem and #IslamKills. Six of the accounts sent an identical tweet 'Pfff dit vindt ik verschrikkelijk', containing the same grammatical error (a so-called 'dt-fout' in the verb form), over the space of several hours. Troll accounts focused their attention on the Netherlands, mainly by retweeting comments by alt-right cheerleaders such as journalist Wierd Duk and conspiracy theorist Joost Niemöller. One account, going by the name of @Ten_gop, retweeted 32 messages by PVV leader Geert Wilders in four months. Ironically, the fake accounts had more success in the Netherlands with tweets in English. More than 6,000 Dutch troll accounts shared 30,000 English-language messages with a total of 9.5 million followers. Fake followers In a separate development, some of the Netherlands' highest-profile politicians saw their follower count slashed after Twitter removed millions of fake accounts from its system. Geert Wilders lost around 15% of his nearly 1 million followers following the clear-out. The two MPs from the Denk party, Tunahan Kuzu and Farid Azarkan, had their numbers slashed by 34% and 39% respectively from a much smaller base. Twitter said around 6 per cent of all accounts had been culled in the operation, designed to improve the website's credibility. More >

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