Content about The Netherlands

The international non-governmental organization Transparency International (TI) presented on 14 May its assessment of the Dutch national integrity system. The report is part of the pan-European Anti-Corruption Initiative, supported by the European Commission and the Ministry of Security and Justice in the Netherlands. The purpose of this initiative is to assess and review of National Integrity Systems in 25 European countries, as well as to advocate for sustainable and effective reforms.

Dutch prime Minister Mark Rutte caused something of a stir when he apparently lambasted his former supporter, Geert Wilders, during a television interview on 12 May.

Rutte suggested that he would “destroy” Wilders’ far-right Freedom Party following a spat that saw Wilders withdraw his party’s support for Rutte’s coalition government over austerity measures. A general election is now scheduled for 12 September.

The number of travellers to and from Dutch national airports reached an unprecedented near 54 million in 2011. The volume of goods shipped through the air barely increased from 2010 to 2011.  

By the end of 2008 and throughout 2009, the global economic crisis was also manifest in aviation. Subsequently, the economy made a modest recovery in 2010. In 2011, air passenger transport grew by 11% to nearly 54 million travellers, i.e. a higher number than prior to the crisis, Statistics Netherlands reported.

It seems that the strong criticism worded by various sources against Eurozone's, or rather Germany's stubbornness to limit policy options only to austerity is finally paying dividends. Last week's New Europe observes pertinently: “The International Monetary Fund (IMF) in its recent spring conference came to the conclusion that Europe had done a lot towards fiscal consolidation, but the time has come to pay attention to growth”.

As the saying goes, the only certain things in life are death and taxes.  For Apple, Inc., though, it has been able to sidestep these certainties: having circumvented corporate death in the 1980s, now it is doing the same with corporate taxes.

It has recently been revealed that the company uses a tricky but legal method to eschew the payment of billions of dollars in tax every year. A report was published by the New York Times that stated that the company uses subsidiaries in Ireland, the Netherlands and other low-tax nations to cut back on its global tax bill.

In the Eurogroup meting of 15 May, there will be probably a deep re-shuffle of the entire Eurozone's strategy to counter its sovereign debt crisis. The new factors for this possible re-orientation of the monetary zone will be the results of the French and the Greek elections of 6 May.

The first round of the French presidential elections happened to coincide with the demise of the right wing minority government in the Netherlands. Of course, there is no direct link between the two; French people do not vote in the Netherlands, and the Dutch unfortunately do not understand French any more since it was scrapped from the obligatory secondary school curriculum a generation ago, but still the two events may be fruits from the same tree. A wind of change is picking up momentum in Europe.

With Marine Le Pen winning 20% of the vote in the first round of the French Presidential election, we take a look at other things that 1 person in 5 support, or believe is true.

1. Aliens are on Earth. A survey of 23,000 people in 22 countries showed that 20% belived "alien beings have come to earth and walk amongst us in our communities disguised as us". Interestingly, this belief was stronger in India and China, both had over 40% support, down to lolwy Belgium and Netherlands, where only 8% had faith in alien visitors.

The European Association of Pharmaceutical Full-line Wholesalers (GIRP) has presented the findings of a study on the distribution sector in six European countries; France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Spain and United Kingdom.

According to a recent Gallup research, 45% of the Bulgarians rate their current and future lives miserable enough to be considered suffering. The Europeans who feel that way are 14%.

The data represents people’s opinions about their own lives in 146 countries around the world in 2011. Gallup classifies respondents as ‘thriving’, ‘struggling’ or ‘suffering’, according to how they rate their lives on a ladder scale numbered from 0 to 10 based on the Cantril Self-Anchoring Striving Scale.