The South Limburg municipality of Sittard-Geleen is going to add a section about Limburg culture in its integration courses for foreigners. The courses with a special focus on Limburg will be given by DaCapo college and Leeuwenborgh training centre and will probably start in September.
Source: L1 Nieuws, 31 March 2007
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The Brussels regional tourism minister Evelyne Huytebroek (Francophone green) has officially launched a new campaign to promote the capital abroad. Ms Huytebroek called on Europeans living in Brussels to do their bit by promoting their adopted home town in their respective countries of origin.
Read full article: Flanders News, 28 March 2007
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From the latest edition of the Meuse-Rhine Journal:
Now Chinese tourists and businesspeople from all over the world will be able to read the home page of Stadt Aachen on the Internet in their own language. The information is already available in English, French and Dutch, and now the basic information is available in Chinese too. […]

The latest edition of the Meuse-Rhine Journal reports:
The Dutch Association for Sexology (NVVS) is inaugurating an Extraordinary Chair in Sexology at the University of Maastricht on April 1, 2007. In the coming five years, Professor Jacques van Langveld will focus on research and education in the area of sexology with special reference to the development […]

The latest issue of the Meuse-Rhine reports:
The 20th session of The Fine Arts Fair in Maastricht has been judged a success on the business front. There were many new collectors from Germany and Spain. The fair attracted 71,000 visitors, 15% fewer than last year but this was the intention of the organizers who wanted to […]

On Friday March 2, 2007 the full-time MBA program of Maastricht School of Management was accredited by the Dutch – Flemish Accreditation Organization (NVAO). This makes MSM the only business school in The Netherlands to hold accreditations from four of the major (international) accreditation bodies, NVAO, AMBA, ACBSP, IACBE.
The advantages of NVAO accreditation
Accreditation is […]

Finding decent work in Maastricht for an expat is next to impossible, especially when you’re a Canadian who only speaks English and secondary school level French. The only readily available option is working at a call centre. This was disappointing after finally finishing two university degrees, but I had to pay the bills and maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. So I went through a surprisingly long hiring process and was hired by DaimerChrysler in their UK market. [continued…]

Feeling somewhat confused or disappointed after several months in a new country is not unusual… Sometimes it may be a relief to receive some help in unravelling one’s clew of thoughts. Crossroads looks at the inside of a coaching practice. [continued…]

Dutch Integration Minister Ella Vogelaar says that the integration of migrants in Dutch society leave much to be desired. More than half the participants in integration courses fail to reach the desired level of fluency in Dutch, and many make no progress even after attending a special language course. Ms Vogelaar says that under the […]

Political indecisiveness and mediocre education are the greatest threats to the innovation climate in the Netherlands. The conclusion is voiced by executives of DSM, Philips and Unilever in employers organisation VNO-NCW’s magazine Forum.
Chemicals concern DSM has been occupied for 18 months with setting up a national programme intended to give the Netherlands a leading position […]

Very informative article in Expatica Netherlands:
‘Can I choose to give birth in hospital?’, ‘Is it safe to give birth at home?’, ‘Can I request an epidural in advance or find a midwife who speaks my mother tongue?’ and ‘Where can I find a good birth preparation class in English?’ Expatica Netherlands editor tries to answers […]

Many young Muslims value their faith as important to their identity. They tend to place more importance on it now than they used to. This is a result of their social environment (parents, relatives, friends), but it also seems as if the constant discussion in society about Islam encourages young Muslims to become more committed […]

The National Ombudsman Alex Brenninkmeijer says immigrants who are in the Netherlands legally should be entitled to an identity card. He says many bona fide residents are unable to meet their legal requirement to carry identification documents.
Asylum seekers, for example, often have to wait for residency permits and Dutch passports. Without ID, they are unable […]

Flemish Minister-president Yves Leterme met with Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende on Monday. There is little chance that a road sticker will be introduced in Flanders.
Flanders has for years been preparing plans for the introduction of a traffic road in consultation with the other regions. Motorists would be required to pay (for example EUR […]

Three Italian nationals have been charged and are being held in custody in Brussels as part of a corruption probe into tenders awarded by the European Commission, Belgian prosecutors said Wednesday. The three include a civil servant working for the European Commission, an assistant to a member of the European Parliament and a businessman, prosecutors […]

Almost half of all Dutch municipalities saw a decrease in the population in 2006, Statistics Netherlands (CBS) reported on Monday.
The population of the Netherlands as a whole grew by 22,000 people in 2006. But 226 of the 458 municipalities saw a decline in the number of inhabitants. Only one in five municipalities saw a decline […]

The European Journalism Centre is pleased to announce the relaunch of its corporate website under ejc.net.
The aim of the new website is to assist journalists to do a better job when reporting and commenting on news and current affairs. The EJC website provides tools such as a variety of RSS feeds on international news, journalism, […]

“I can certainly say that our delegation has never been so well accommodated at any previous European Council. I am sure that contributed to the success of the summit.”
British Prime Minister John Major, December 1991 [continued…]

Lions Club Maastricht Mondial Announces 2007 May Fair for Expatriates and Members of the International Business Community:
Date: 3rd June 2007
Time: 13:00 - 18:00
Place: Kasteel Limbricht, Gemeente Sittard Geleen
The Lion’s Club Maastricht Mondial, is a very special […]

The following update was sent to Crossroads’ mailing list subscribers on Monday 26 March 2007:
Dear Crossroads reader,
Welcome to a new update about recent developments on Crossroads, the web magazine for expatriates in Maastricht published by the European Journalism Centre. 
The new year has started very well for Crossroads, since our number of visitors has now increased to over […]

The Dutch broadband market grew by 4.7 percent during the fourth quarter of 2006 and by 21.5 percent during 2006 to end the year with 5.042 million connections, compared with 4.15 million on 31 December 2005, according to Telecompaper’s quarterly Dutch broadband report. The broadband penetration per household increased to 70.8 percent at the end […]

Dutch politicians and media are downplaying excesses of multicultural society and thereby increasing these, in the view of Islam expert Hans Janssen. “The Netherlands should resist, using non-peaceful means”, he argues in weekly magazine Opinio.
Jansen, Professor of Modern Islamic Ideology at Utrecht University, characterizes the Dutch as inhabitants of “a peaceful enclave” who have, however, […]

The cabinet was celebrating 50 years of European collaboration yesterday but confronted with a dramatic report on the views of the Dutch on the EU.
In the Knight’s Hall of Parliament in The Hague a conference was held to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the European Union. Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende praised the EU abundantly […]

Radio Netherlands is the Netherlands’ international service, offering news, information and culture to millions of people around the world.
Radio Netherlands is among the five most influential international services in the world, the other four being Voice of America, BBC World Service, Deutsche Welle and Radio France Internationale. However, Radio Netherlands ranks 18th in terms […]

A majority in the Dutch parliament has just voted for controversial measures which will allow for people to be banned from certain areas, or mean they will have to report to the police at specified times. This despite the fact that they have committed no crime.
Read full article: Radio Netherlands, 21 March 2007
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The 16 hashish-selling coffeeshops in Maastricht are to introduce a new biometric control system to stop minors entering the premises – and customers buying more than the permitted five grammes of soft drugs a day, ANP reports.
Customers will first have to show a passport or other ID card, which will be checked through a […]

Dutch people did not lead a more healthy lifestyle in 2006. The percentage of Dutch adults who were overweight continued to rise. The percentage of smokers did not decrease and the percentage of heavy drinkers also remained stable. Lastly the number of Dutch people who comply with the norms for healthy exercise remained at the […]

One in every twenty pupils in secondary education (vo) and secondary vocational education (mbo) leave school without a basic qualification. At the lowest mbo level, the drop-out rate is even as high as one in three.
More than one million pupils
In the school year 2004/’05, there were 1.2 million pupils attending secondary education and secondary […]

Last year, unemployment decreased across all Dutch provinces. The lowest unemployment rate was again recorded in Utrecht, the highest in Flevoland. Unemployment rates also fell in the four largest cities, with the exception of Rotterdam.
Sharpest decrease in Groningen, Limburg and Zeeland
In 2005, unemployment was already reduced in many parts of the Netherlands and […]

Last year, 185 thousand children were born in the Netherlands, an increase by 20 thousand compared to 2000. The decline in recent years is mainly due to the fact that there are fewer women of child-bearing age.
Number of births reduced further
In the years to come the number of births will decline further, because the […]