Campaigners on Wednesday handed the Finnish EU presidency a one-million-signature petition calling for the European Parliament headquarters in Strasbourg to be moved to Brussels to save money.
Swedish euro-MP Cecilia Malmstrom presented a computer file containing the petition to Finnish European Affairs Minister Paula Lehtomaki, urging her to bring up the issue with her counterparts […]

Paul Sturkenboom wants to build an Islamic hospital in Rotterdam, the first in the Netherlands. He presented his plan yesterday at the Zakenfestival business festival in Rotterdam.
Sturkenboom was chairman of the executive board of the Slotervaart hospital in Amsterdam, which was taken over by investors a month ago. He now hopes to build a hospital […]

Paul Sturkenboom wants to build an Islamic hospital in Rotterdam, the first in the Netherlands. He presented his plan yesterday at the Zakenfestival business festival in Rotterdam.
Sturkenboom was chairman of the executive board of the Slotervaart hospital in Amsterdam, which was taken over by investors a month ago. He now hopes to build a hospital […]

During a debate with Integration Minister Rita Verdonk, parliament has expressed its opposition to the detention of failed asylum seekers with underage children. However, parliament is divided on the issue. Most of the opposition parties believe such families should never be placed in detention, while the coalition parties say this should be possible to prevent […]

Using forklifts, Dutch cheesemakers turned over a thick slab of Dutch cheese weighing nearly 600 kg (1,320 lb) on Tuesday, hoping to claim the title for the world’s largest cheese.
The table-sized cheese, commissioned by Dutch cheese producer Beemster, was gently lifted and turned by forklifts in preparation for an official weighing next week.
Last year, […]

More and more people from EU member states in eastern Europe - especially Poland - are coming to the Netherlands for temporary work. In 2004, 70 thousand people who lived in Poland worked in the Netherlands for part of the year. They were often recruited through temp agencies.
Three times as many jobs as in […]

The number of traffic fatalities in the Netherlands declined by 25 percent between 2001 and 2005, a European study revealed on Tuesday.
The European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) said the decline was the seventh largest among the 25 EU member states.
The ETSC said the decrease was remarkable given the fact that the Netherlands already has the […]

Keen to promote a positive image of Flanders abroad, the Flemish Minister responsible for tourism, media and foreign affairs Geert Bourgeois (Flemish nationalist) has launched a new logo.
A modern multi-coloured logo has been chosen to be used by all Flemish public services and other Flemish organisations based abroad, along side their own individual logos.
[…] […]

Princess Maxima is pregnant with her third child, the government information service RVD announced on Monday.
“The birth of the third child of the Prince of Orange and Princess Maxima is expected in the second half of April 2007,” the RVD said.
Full article: Expatica Netherlands, 25 September 2006
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Social Affairs Minister Aart-Jan de Geus has told the Dutch newspaper Algemeen Dagblad that providing free childcare would be impossibly expensive.
The opposition Labour Party and the conservative VVD have both suggested making childcare free in order to give more parents the opportunity to work.
Mr Geus says both parties have underestimated the cost: the […]

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso does not think the EU should enlarge any further after admitting Bulgaria and Romania until it first carries out institutional reforms. The EC is expected to approve the entry of the two countries on Tuesday, adding two members to the 25-member bloc as of 1 January 2007.
Mr Barroso says […]

There were 80,000 Poles working legally in the Netherlands in 2004. Of this group, 10,000 had settled in the Netherlands, while the other 70,000 were temporary workers who lived in Poland, the Central Bureau for Statistics (CBS) reported yesterday.
The 70,000 spent short periods in the Netherlands and were not registered with a Dutch local authority. […]

The European Commission adopted a Decision today to establish a High Level Group on Multilingualism. The Group, comprising 11 experts from across Europe, will meet formally for the first time on 3 October 2006. It has been set up in response to the 2005 Communication “A new framework strategy for multilingualism,” which called for […]

Interesting feature article about Dutch immigrants in Sweden:
Sweden has become extremely popular with Dutch immigrants in the past few years. As Swedish communities in Värmland, Västmanland and Dalsland open their doors, individuals and families in The Netherlands are getting ready to move.
Read full article: Sweden.se, 23 September 2006
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The Dutch prime minister appointed new justice and housing ministers on Friday to replace cabinet members who had quit over safety lapses at a detention centre where a fire killed 11 illegal immigrants last October.
Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende said in a statement that Ernst Hirsch Ballin would replace Piet Hein Donner as justice minister […]

Het Parcours is a yearly cultural festival where all different performing arts and cultural organisations of Maastricht are introduced to the public. [continued…]

Like each year international newcomers to Brussels will receive a warm welcome at the annual Welcome Fair.
This year’s edition is already the 13th and will take place at the Autoworld Museum in the Jubel Park (Cinquantenaire) on Saturday and Sunday.
The fair will give its visitors a taste of everything Brussels has to offer. Information […]

In the Netherlands, support for EU enlargements has declined from 58 to 43 percent in five years’ time. Nonetheless, the Netherlands is not more negative on enlargement than other EU member states, according to a study by the Central Planning Bureau (CPB).
The average support for 12 possible enlargements was slightly higher in the Netherlands at […]

Ministers Piet Hein Donner (Justice) and Sybilla Dekker (Housing) resigned Thursday. They offered their resignation a few hours after the publication of a report on the so-called Schiphol fire.
The two ministers met behind closed doors with Premier Jan Peter Balkenende and Vice-Premier Gerrit Zalm early afternoon. The Christian democratic (CDA) and conservative (VVD) party leaders […]

An exhibition on the Netherlands’ education opened in Hanoi on Sept. 19, introducing nearly 1,200 study programmes at tertiary and post-graduate levels to Vietnamese students and their parents.
The exhibition which was organised by the Netherlands Education Support Office (NESO) in Ha Noi drew the participation of 15 Dutch universities, including those from Amsterdam and Maastricht.
Read […]

A growing number of young people in the developing world, particularly girls, are attending school. Despite this positive development, 42 million boys and 58 million girls still receive no education. And, of those children who complete primary education, only a small proportion go on to vocational or higher education. To ensure that all children receive […]

The Dutch Cabinet, acting on a proposal tabled by Immigration and Integration Minister Rita Verdonk, has agreed to amend criteria in the Aliens Decree 2000 in such a manner that regulations on the termination of residence will be tightened for public-order cases.
Depending on the severity of the punishment and the number of convictions, criminal […]

EU:
- The Netherlands wants a strong European approach to cross-border questions such as organised crime, terrorism, asylum, migration, environmental policy and climate change. - More attention to quality in the enlargement process, including a stringent and full application of accession criteria. - In the process of institutional reform that will likely be resumed during 2007, […]

Without explicitly mentioning the subject, Queen Beatrix paid particular attention to tensions in the Netherlands and the world yesterday during her annual Speech from the Throne. She repeatedly made it clear that the government’s goal is to bring groups closer together.
In her Speech from the Throne, which was shorter than in other years, the Queen […]

Scientists have identified a new biomarker which can help diagnose heart failure, and identify patients at risk of dying within two months.
The collaborative study by researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and the University Hospital of Maastricht (AZM), The Netherlands, found that elevated blood levels of galectin-3 can help detect the outcomes for patients […]

More than one million people have signed a petition demanding the European Parliament to be based permanently in Brussels, citing massive costs of the commute by European lawmakers to the eastern French city of Strasbourg for monthly plenary sessions.
The millionth signature on the online petition launched by Swedish EU lawmaker Cecilia Malmstrom in May was […]

An expert on radicalisation will be appointed to Amsterdam’s Slotervaart district in an attempt to prevent Moroccan youths from becoming extremists.
As soon as possible, the expert will start charting the district’s various groups and their ideologies.
District Council Chairman Ahmed Marcouch says there the situation in Slotervaart is dire. He sees many young people […]

The Dutch are gloomy about the social climate in their country. They are particularly worried about insecurity on the street and in other public places, according to a poll by Newcom Research & Consultancy.
Nearly seven in 10 (68 percent) of those polled consider the social climate in the country has deteriorated in the past three […]

The contents of Dutch schoolbooks is often too leftwing, according to the conservatives (VVD). Schools should check up on the lesson material they use much more stringently, said VVD MP Eric Balemans yesterday.
The VVD is shocked by a survey by HP/De Tijd weekly into the quality of Dutch secondary education schoolbooks. The social orientation textbook […]

Eric Wetzels, 38, will become the new director of Centre Céramique and of the Natural History Museum in Maastricht.
Wetzels, an archaeologist, has been working for the past few years as cultural heritage coordinator at the municipality of Maastricht. Wetzels will start his new positions on 1 November.
Source: L1 Nieuws (in Dutch), 15 September 2006

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