Opinion: The hypocrites from The Hague | August 2020 |

No question, the Dutch are my favourite among the European neighbours.
But ever since the poison of right-wing extremist nationalism started penetrating deeper and deeper into Dutch politics, this beautiful image has increasingly disappeared behind ugly patches of ignorance and narrow-mindedness. And this is happening to the detriment of all of Europe.

Prime Minister Mark Rutte demonstrated this during the negotiations on the EU budget and the Coronavirus relief package. There, he rallied as the leader of the "frugal" camp which opposed the supposed threat of wasting taxpayers' money on economically weaker EU states. With this dictum, Rutte and his allies pushed through extensive cuts and turned more than €100 billion of planned grants into mere loans. This will not help the particularly hard-hit Italians and Spaniards because their state coffers are already heavily in debt.