A short story by Maastricht’s famous writer Alphonse Olterdissen, especially translated from the Maastricht dialect for Crossroads. [continued…]

I ventured into the centre of Maastricht for opening day of Carnival last Sunday and managed to snap some photos of the colourful party. Here’s just a few of the amazing costumes that were on display. [more photographs…]

When we moved to South Limburg and heard that Maastricht was THE capital of carnival, we were initially more worried than excited.

I had not particularly enjoyed my first encounter with carnival in the Netherlands back in 1992. At the time, my Dutch husband and I lived above a pub in Hoogland, a village near Amersfoort in the centre of the country, and I remember how the stench of stale beer had permeated the air for weeks after the three days of madness. [continued…]

This year’s huge parade of carnival floats, bands and clowns which wove its way through the narrow streets of Cologne, Germany on Monday was too long to fit on the 6.5-kilometre route.
The head of the procession was set to reach the dispersal zone before the tail of the parade had departed from the marshalling […]

According to a recent study, Brussels is the only city in the Walloon region that can be rightfully classified as an ‘economic centre’.
There is Vervier, Belgium’s water capital; and Eupen, the capital of the German-speaking community. Namur is administrative and political capital of the Walloon region, while Charleroi is said to be the social capital. […]

In the Netherlands, the lawyer of the country’s most notorious criminal has withdrawn as his defence counsel. The lawyer, Bram Moszkowicz has come under increasing pressure in recent weeks to withdraw from the case of Willem Holleeder, who is notorious for organising the kidnapping and murder of beer tycoon Freddy Heineken in the 1980s. Mr […]

Princess Maxima should end her dual nationality status and give up her Argentine passport, outgoing integration minister Rita Verdonk told TV current affairs show Nova on Friday evening. Maxima became Dutch in 2001 through a fast-track process ahead of her wedding to Crown Prince Willem-Alexander.
Maxima still holds Argentine nationality, which cannot technically be renounced. […]

A proposal by the incoming Dutch government to allow civil servants to refuse to officiate at same-sex marriages is causing a public outcry. Several local authorities have already ruled that their officials will not be permitted to turn down marriages involving gay or lesbian couples. A number have even indicated they will not tolerate civil […]

The exhibition in Maastricht displaying the original Maastricht Treaty has attracted nearly 5,500 visitors since its opening a week ago, ANP reports.
Mayor Gerd Leers personally travelled to Rome last week to bring the treaty to the Netherlands. The exhibition marks the 15th anniversary of the treaty, which, among other things, confirmed the introduction of […]

US historians have unveiled a cache of letters detailing how the father of teenage diarist Anne Frank tried to get his family out of Nazi-occupied Europe to the United States in 1941.
The 65 documents, which were found in a New York archive in 2005, show how Otto Frank tried desperately, but ultimately in vain, to […]

The Netherlands chases away foreign businessmen and women by making it difficult for them to live in the country, claims Xue Hanqin, the Chinese ambassador to Holland, in the latest issue of the employers’ magazine Forum.
The biggest problem is that the Netherlands wrongly sees giving visas to business people as an immigration issue. This […]

A hotline number for reporting missing children will be launched across the European Union, one of a string of planned bloc-wide telephone services, an EU official announced Thursday.
The number 116000 will be available throughout all EU member states to report missing children, said Telecom Commissioner Viviane Reding.
[…]First individual EU nations must adopt the necessary measures, […]

The Party for Freedom (PVV) does not want Ahmed Aboutaleb and Nebahat Albayrak to join the cabinet because they have double nationality. A motion to this effect yesterday led to a fierce collision between PVV leader Geert Wilders and Lower House Speaker Gerdi Verbeet, who did not allow the motion.
Labour (PvdA) party member Aboutaleb, who […]

As incoming Education Minister, Ronald Plasterk will push for innovation. He is a passionate advocate of a knowledge and technology-driven economy.
Scientist and journalist Plasterk is the surprise cabinet appointment. He is known as highly intelligent, broad-minded, friendly but also ambitious and headstrong. It will be difficult for him to stick to his own department. Looking […]

Premier Jan Peter Balkenende has completed his new cabinet consisting of Christian democrats (CDA), Labour (PvdA) and small Christian party ChristenUnie. The names of all 16 ministers and 10 state secretaries are known.
The most striking names are Ronald Plasterk, to be Education Minister for PvdA, and Ab Klink, Health Minister for CDA. Plasterk is a […]

Governor Leon Frissen believes that the new cabinet will be beneficial to the province of Limburg. The new cabinet counts three ministers and one state secretary from Limburg .
Camiel Eurlings will be Ministry of Transport, Public Works and Water Management, Maxime Verhagen will become the new minister for Foreign Affairs and Maria van der […]

“Let them be free” is the golden rule for child-rearing in the Netherlands. No wonder Dutch kids have been rated Europe’s most fortunate. From a tender age, their opinions are valued, their wishes respected, and there is no homework until their last year in prep school.
Few Dutch children have chores to do at home […]

A study by UNICEF, the UN’s children’s foundation, indicates that Dutch children have it better than their peers in other rich countries.
UNICEF looked at a number of relevant factors like poverty, safety and education in 21 industrialised countries.
The Netherlands topped the list. Denmark and Sweden came in second and third place. The UK came […]

Schools that do not provide enough classroom hours will be given until the end of this school year to make amends. If they fail to do so, sanctions will follow.
Minister for Education Maria van der Hoeven and State Secretary Bruno Bruins said this on Monday.
The minister and state secretary are very concerned about the number […]

The European Parliament will increase the number of debates scheduled in The Netherlands on the European constitution. At least six to eight debates are planned, ANP reports.
The number of people who visit the debates is growing. 250 people visited the debate in Maastricht last Wednesday, as compared to 80 at the first debate held in […]

There are about 3,000 drug addicts in Liege. The city is considering a plan to start free handing out free heroin to some of them, Metro Time reports.
“After a lot of discussion, we have chosen for the distribution of pharmaceutical heroin under medical supervision”, said Mayor Willy Demeyer.
The municipal government is following an […]

The Dutch coalition parties have come a step closer to forming a new cabinet. The Christian Democrats, Labour Party and Christian Union have reached an agreement on how the ministerial posts are to be assigned. The Christian Democrats will provide eight ministers, including those for Social Affairs, Justice and Foreign Affairs. The social democratic Labour […]

The Dutch Minister for Administrative Reform, Atzo Nicolaï, has agreed that the new status of the Netherlands Antilles will only come into effect at the end of next year. Previously it had been agreed that the islands would assume their new status in mid-2007. Now a new date has been set: 15 December 2008.
The island […]

Former Dutch environment minister Jan Pronk has said that if necessary countries should take unilateral measures on climate change. Speaking at the opening of an international conference on climate change in The Hague, Mr Pronk said that international cooperation is certainly necessary, but unilateral action can perhaps achieve a turnaround more quickly.
According to Mr […]

The number of Dutch citizens in prison in South America has increased substantially in recent years. They are almost all in custody for drugs offences, RTL Nieuws reports.
The TV news programme has obtained possession of reports from the Dutch embassies in Argentina, Ecuador, the Dominican Republic and Peru. In these countries, there are on average […]

A majority of Amsterdammers supports the participation of children in the Gay Pride festival this summer. This emerges from research by the municipal statistics service O+S carried out for local TV station AT5.
O+S asked Amsterdammers what they thought of the ‘under-16 boat,’ in which young homosexuals will participate in the annual parade through the capital’s […]

The following is a press release from Odyssee, an organisation for training, education, coaching and advice.
You live and work as a foreigner in the Netherlands. You are finding out about your employer and your new working environment. Furthermore, you (and your partner) are beginning to get to know your new living environment. To help you, […]

Are you interested in British culture? Or maybe you’d like to meet fellow expats living in South Limburg? Genootschap Nederland-Engeland (Netherlands-England Society) is a Dutch organisation hosting events related to British culture across the Netherlands and it might be just what you’re looking for. [continued…]

“We’ve been able to set up interviews with mayor Gerd Leers and Professor Luc Soete, and also with a student from the University of Maastricht who has just written a book about the Maastricht Treaty, but we are still very keen on interviewing you as well,” the young journalist from Radio France Internationale said to me on the phone. “I’m sure you’ve got many interesting things to say about Maastricht as a European city,” she added. [continued…]

A Dutch journalist asked an Amsterdam court on Friday to convict him for eating chocolate, saying by doing so he was benefiting from child slavery on cocoa farms in Ivory Coast.
Teun van de Keuken, 35, is seeking a jail sentence to raise consumer awareness and force the cocoa and chocolate industry to take tougher […]