On 5 April Ronald Plasterk, the Ministry of the Interior, presented the AIVD’s outlook on its priorities for 2013 to parliament. With the arrival of Putin and Netherlands-Russia Year less than two weeks away, the report zeroed in on among other things “spying activities by foreign powers in the Netherlands,” which involves above all “Iran, China, and Russia” in…
It was a neat coincidence. Putin came calling on the Netherlands last Monday, packing his agenda with a royal tete-a-tete at the Amsterdam Hermitage followed by an exchange of pleasantries with Rutte and ending with a power-dinner surrounded by the Dutch-Russian business community. This was the opening…
“Putin always emphasizes the importance of fighting corruption, so let us help him punish those bribe-takers by providing information on their accounts in foreign banks, their foreign assets and capital. Recent polls show that some 40 percent of Russians support the Magnitsky Act. It is a…
Just when it felt like the Dutch angle on the Cyprus bail-out was a little thin, despite Jeroen Dijsselbloem’s key role, a story popped up in the Financiele Dagblad last…
By Constant Hijzen This week the Dutch Intelligence and Security Service AIVD (Algemene Inlichtingen- en Veiligheidsdienst) turned down a request for an investigation into the case of Roel van Duijn.…
Ok, there isn’t much of a Netherlands-Russia link here, but what there is definitely passes over the desk of Jeroen Dijsselbloem. Who would want to be Eurogroup chairman? The meeting…
