Dutch Finance Minister Gertt Zalm continued to criticise EU giants France and Germany over the EU’s Stability Pact, which requires all EU countries to keep their budget deficits below 3% of GNP.
As Minister Zalm said repeatedly, Germany and France have failed to control their deficits and Germany’s attempts to avoid paying the penalties for breaking the Stability Pact undermines the credibility of European treaties. Some good news for the Minister: after three consecutive quarters of decline, the Dutch economy grew by 0.1% in the 3rd quarter. A Rotterdam City Council plan not to accept any more asylum-seekers doesn’t have parliamentary support. The Volkskrant commented that what the “noise” was really about is not simply the 240 registered asylum seekers that Rotterdam can expect next year but the broader problem of preventing ghettoes of lower-income immigrants forming in big cities. Elsewhere, the Dutch Parliament asked the government to forbid citizens of the ten new EU countries from working in the Netherlands. Parliament fears the entry of the ten new members in May 2004 will result in a huge influx of foreign workers and thus increase unemployment. VVD politician Hirsi Ali said Holland’s developmental assistance policy has failed. Ali claims Holland%s aide policy for sub-Sahara Africa for the past 30 years hasn’t improved the lives of the poor. She blames donors: ,,Developmental aid often seems like giving welfare payments to an alcoholic father with ten children.” D66 politician Bert Bakker hit back at Ali: ,,She reads two books on the subject and then says it’s all gone wrong. What a shameless pedant.” Meanwhile, Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende was possibly the target of a failed attack. A man carrying a long knife asked one of Balkenende’s neighbours for directions to the Prime Minister’s home. The man was later arrested. Politicians debated a plan to change the current policy of one prisoner per cell to two prisoners per cell in Dutch prisons. But some politicians worry that two prisoners in one cell will lead to fights about what to watch on television. Justice Minister Piet Hein Donner offered a solution: ,,Prisoners must rent their televisions, so two televisions could be rented, although that’s more expensive.” 19 bullets were fired through the office windows of Dutch business magazine, Quote. The motive remains unclear, but Quote recently published critical articles about Dutch businessmen with links to organised crime. Following claims last month by the Vatican%s Cardinal Trujillo that the HIV virus is so small it can pass through condoms, Dutch Minister for Cooperation and Development Agnes van Ardenne, who is Catholic, said Trujillo’s remarks were nonsense. A Dutch member of the European Parliament holds the record for submitting the most written inquiries. Dutch Socialist Erik Meijer has submitted 509 written questions since joining the EU parliament in 1999. Meijer’s “interrogatory diarrhea”, as the Algemeen Dagblad newspaper called it, costs the EU “millions” because each inquiry costs seven to eight thousand euros, since it must be translated into 11 languages and submitted to the offices of all 20 commissioners. Meijer, whose questions refer to such issues as ‘the danger of a comet hitting earth’ and ‘the situation in Transistria’, says he cannot quite remember why he inquired about the ‘implications of importing the fern Dicksonia antarctica’. The dead body of a 16-year old schoolgirl Maja Bradaric was found burning in Arnhem. Police have three suspects in custody. Amsterdam drug enforcement officers made a lucrative bust, confiscating 7.5 million euros in cash in an Amsterdam apartment and arresting two Columbian suspects. There was a minor earthquake in Groningen, registering 2.7 on the Richter Scale. And finally, the Netherlands was paid a brief visit by a man whose name has become a byword for armed rebellion around the globe: Mikhail Kalashnikov, the general from the Urals who invented the favourite weapon of rebels and terrorists everywhere. The general doesn’t like to be reminded of his past and now says: ,,I wish I’d invented a lawnmower instead!”
Dutch Finance Minister Gertt Zalm continued to criticise EU giants France and Germany over the EU’s Stability Pact, which requires all EU countries to keep their budget deficits below 3% of GNP. As Minister Zalm said repeatedly, Germany and France have failed to control their deficits and Germany’s attempts to avoid paying the penalties for breaking the Stability Pact undermines the credibility of European treaties. Some good news for the Minister: after three consecutive quarters of decline, the Dutch economy grew by 0.1% in the 3rd quarter. A Rotterdam City Council plan not to accept any more asylum-seekers doesn’t have parliamentary support. The Volkskrant commented that what the “noise” was really about is not simply the 240 registered asylum seekers that Rotterdam can expect next year but the broader problem of preventing ghettoes of lower-income immigrants forming in big cities. Elsewhere, the Dutch Parliament asked the government to forbid citizens of the ten new EU countries from working in the Netherlands. Parliament fears the entry of the ten new members in May 2004 will result in a huge influx of foreign workers and thus increase unemployment. VVD politician Hirsi Ali said Holland’s developmental assistance policy has failed. Ali claims Holland%s aide policy for sub-Sahara Africa for the past 30 years hasn’t improved the lives of the poor. She blames donors: ,,Developmental aid often seems like giving welfare payments to an alcoholic father with ten children.” D66 politician Bert Bakker hit back at Ali: ,,She reads two books on the subject and then says it’s all gone wrong. What a shameless pedant.” Meanwhile, Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende was possibly the target of a failed attack. A man carrying a long knife asked one of Balkenende’s neighbours for directions to the Prime Minister’s home. The man was later arrested. Politicians debated a plan to change the current policy of one prisoner per cell to two prisoners per cell in Dutch prisons. But some politicians worry that two prisoners in one cell will lead to fights about what to watch on television. Justice Minister Piet Hein Donner offered a solution: ,,Prisoners must rent their televisions, so two televisions could be rented, although that’s more expensive.” 19 bullets were fired through the office windows of Dutch business magazine, Quote. The motive remains unclear, but Quote recently published critical articles about Dutch businessmen with links to organised crime. Following claims last month by the Vatican%s Cardinal Trujillo that the HIV virus is so small it can pass through condoms, Dutch Minister for Cooperation and Development Agnes van Ardenne, who is Catholic, said Trujillo’s remarks were nonsense. A Dutch member of the European Parliament holds the record for submitting the most written inquiries. Dutch Socialist Erik Meijer has submitted 509 written questions since joining the EU parliament in 1999. Meijer’s “interrogatory diarrhea”, as the Algemeen Dagblad newspaper called it, costs the EU “millions” because each inquiry costs seven to eight thousand euros, since it must be translated into 11 languages and submitted to the offices of all 20 commissioners. Meijer, whose questions refer to such issues as ‘the danger of a comet hitting earth’ and ‘the situation in Transistria’, says he cannot quite remember why he inquired about the ‘implications of importing the fern Dicksonia antarctica’. The dead body of a 16-year old schoolgirl Maja Bradaric was found burning in Arnhem. Police have three suspects in custody. Amsterdam drug enforcement officers made a lucrative bust, confiscating 7.5 million euros in cash in an Amsterdam apartment and arresting two Columbian suspects. There was a minor earthquake in Groningen, registering 2.7 on the Richter Scale. And finally, the Netherlands was paid a brief visit by a man whose name has become a byword for armed rebellion around the globe: Mikhail Kalashnikov, the general from the Urals who invented the favourite weapon of rebels and terrorists everywhere. The general doesn’t like to be reminded of his past and now says: ,,I wish I’d invented a lawnmower instead!”
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