Dutch Finance Minister Wouter Bos says the purchasing power of most people in the Netherlands will increase next year. On Thursday, he and his fellow ministers agreed next year’s budget which will be presented on 16 September.
Over recent weeks, it has been widely reported that people on low incomes would be worse off in 2009. […]

* Population growth accelerating
* More immigrants from Europe
* Mortality rate higher
In the first six months of 2008, the population increased by nearly 30 thousand, because more people arrived in the Netherlands than left the country. Net migration has not been positive since the […]

The Dutch statistics office reports that the number of bicycles sold last year rose by 80,000 to 1.4 million. Around 85 percent of the population owns a bicycle and there are now 18 million bicycles in the Netherlands, which has just over 16 million people.
Last year the Dutch cycled a total of 14.7 billion […]

The Dutch government has set aside ten million euros for the education of gifted children in primary schools. Deputy Education Minister Sharon Dijksma says at the moment lessons are not challenging enough for very intelligent children.
Research shows that a third of gifted children gain lower grades than they are actually capable of. She says, some […]

Dutch universities are vying with each other to find the most prominent speakers to open their academic year. Wageningen University appears to be the winner with Kofi Annan.
The former UN Secretary-General will speak on food security and the price of agricultural products in Wageningen on 1 September. The University of Tilburg has also scooped a […]

The Dutch public are soon to receive warnings via their mobile phones during disaster situations. Interior Minister Guusje ter Horst is satisfied with the results of recent trials, and thinks the system is ready to be introduced nationwide.
The text messages will be sent using Cell Broadcast messaging, a technology that allows messages to be sent […]

The Dutch Fund for the Performing Arts has announced it is withdrawing the subsidy of 33 orchestras and bands for the next four years. In total 59 arts organisations will lose their current funding. Sixteen theatre groups have also received a negative decision.
Thirty-six new initiatives will be given funding for the next four years instead.
Source: […]

Residents of the Netherlands do not have to conduct themselves as ‘Dutch’ as long as they endorse the core values of the Dutch constitutional state. This is the nub of an official comment given by the cabinet on the report “Identification with the Netherlands” by the Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR).
“The core values of […]

Like other countries in Western Europe, the Netherlands has experienced its wave of Polish and other Eastern European migrant workers. But now the Germans are coming. Not plumbers and decorators this time, but highly qualified technicians.
Read full article: Radio Netherlands:, 20 August 2008
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Popular support for the European Union has plummeted in the Netherlands since the early 1990s. In 2006, a distinct majority of Dutch voters rejected further European integration, according to the Central Bureau for Statistics (CBS).
In 2006, 55 percent of the Dutch electorate rejected further European integration, 26 percent supported it and 19 percent were undecided. […]

Environment Minister Jacqueline Cramer is introducing statutory protection for nine “motorway panoramas.” Her proposal is intended to guarantee that drivers can enjoy the scenery.
The proposal appears in the draft version of the report ‘View of Beautiful Netherlands’ (Zicht op Mooi Nederland). It is important that there is something beautiful to see along motorways “because research […]

The Dutch Social and Cultural Planning Office reports that many of the country’s migrants are overweight. More than half of the Turks, Moroccans and Antilleans are obese. People with overweight have a higher chance of contracting illnesses such as diabetes, cancer and cardiovascular diseases.
The Social and Cultural Planning Office says that a recent study shows […]

A new safe sex campaign has kicked off in the Netherlands, urging young people to get tested for sexually transmitted infections and to use condoms.
STI AIDS Netherlands decided to launch the campaign after an investigation by the University of Maastricht revealed that while almost 50 percent of sexually-active people between 18 and 35 are […]

Americans are the least satisfied with their health care system, while the Dutch system is rated the best, according to new research.
Polls about health care in 10 developed countries by Harris Interactive revealed a range of opinions about what works and what doesn’t.
In the United States a third of Americans believe their system needs to […]

Integration Minister Ella Vogelaar is paying damages to the language institutes that were to teach Dutch to thousands of immigrants. Because the integration requirement is effectively non-existent, they threaten to go bankrupt.
The previous cabinet, under pressure from Vogelaar’s predecessor Rita Verdonk, decided that around 500,000 people would have to have Dutch lessons in the coming […]

The majority of Dutch people who go abroad to study don’t want to come back to the Netherlands. Is the country suffering from a brain drain?
Adventure, a different culture, better job prospects or a higher quality of education. Dutch students choose to do their Bachelor’s or Master’s degree abroad for a wide range of reasons. […]

A tobacco smoking ban has come into effect in cafes, bars and restaurants in the Netherlands.
The country is following a growing trend across Europe and the world of bans on smoking in public places.
Pro-smoking lobbyists say the ban will lead to a drop in business, but others say any losses will be made […]

The cabinet will grant a loan of 7 million euros to the International Campus Eindhoven. This completes the financing of the new international school.
The international school will be housed in the former Constant Rebecque barracks. The total investment is 32.5 million euros, which will primarily be provided by the Eindhoven local authority. Neighbouring municipalities and […]

The number of smokers in the Netherlands has fallen by 17 percent since the year 2000. But sales of cigarettes and hand-rolling tobacco (’shag’) increased by one quarter.
At the end of 2007 just over one quarter of the Dutch population (aged 12 years and older) were smokers, or 3.7 million people. This was down from […]

Less than half of the 55-64 year olds in the Netherlands have paid work. The situation is however improving, the Social and Cultural Planning Bureau (SCP) concludes in a report presented yesterday.
“Participation in paid work by 55-64 year olds rose between 2003 and 2006 from 43.3 percent to 46.7 percent. If the increase in participation […]

From Radio Netherlands Press Review of 23 June 2008:
Some people believe that a major worldwide catastrophe will destroy civilisation in 2012. This weekend’s de Volkskrant wrote about the thousands of people in the Netherlands who believe in an impending apocalypse in 2012 (the number of believers is many times larger in the United States and […]

A report by the Verwij-Jonker Institute at the University of Utrecht concludes that the likelihood of a child becoming involved in crime is often determined more by the neighbourhood in which he or she grows up than by the ethnic origins of the parents.
The researchers found that children growing up in neighbourhoods with much crime […]

Sources in the Dutch government say the Cabinet has reached a compromise in the question of an expansion of embryo testing during in vitro fertilisation by the Maastricht University Medical Centre. A committee of medical experts will be set up which will make assessments on an individual basis.
The controversy started at the end of last […]

NIS News reports that the Expatcenter Amsterdam Area was opened yesterday at Amsterdam’s World Trade Center.
For more information, check:
Expat Center
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A majority of the Dutch is against the Treaty of Lisbon, according to a poll by Maurice de Hond. But the Netherlands is going ahead with its ratification.
If the Netherlands were to hold a referendum now on the new EU treaty, 54 percent would vote against it, De Hond reported. He polled the views of […]

One Dutch person out of five would prefer to live in Flanders than in the Netherlands. The feeling is not mutual, though, as barely one Fleming in 20 would prefer to move to the Netherlands, a survey held by the Belgian newspaper De Standaard shows.
When asked where they would prefer to live (the Netherlands or […]

Nearly 6 in 10 of the Dutch population say they are religious. Only very few of them go to church, to a mosque or other religious assemblies every week, however.
Nearly six out of ten Dutch are religious
In 2005/2006, 58 percent of Dutch people said they belonged to a religion or believed in a certain ideology. […]

Rembrandt van Rijn, the most famous Dutch artist of the 17th century, enjoyed international fame in his final years. Newly discovered documents in the city of Genoa reveal that Rembrandt received a commission to adorn two altarpieces for a wealthy Italian nobleman, just three years before his death. The letters give a new insight into […]

The free newspaper Metro reports on a convention held last week at Maastricht University, where the crème de la crème of specialists in robotics met to discuss the latest developments in their field. The paper writes:
“What would the world be like if we had someone who followed our every order and cooked for us, washed […]

Labour party leader Wouter Bos told delegates to the party congress on Saturday that integrating newcomers into Dutch society will be his priority, according to press reports.
‘It is the key to winning back the hearts of the people,’ he said.
Bos said that the building of mosques, training imams and Muslims working in the caring professions […]