By: Sara Kovač / Nova24tv
The Dutch government of Mark Rutte resigned in January this year after thousands of families were wrongly accused of child welfare fraud and told to pay the money back.
In light of the tense political events of recent days, in which the Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte also got unnecessarily involved when he intervened with the Slovenian Ambassador in Amsterdam due to a tweet by the Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Janša, we are forgetting that while the Netherlands is considered a socially just, orderly and safe country, the events of the past year show the opposite to be true.
Firstly, let us remind you that in January this year, news broke of a scandal that caused the Dutch government to resign. The news came to light that thousands of Dutch families had to unjustifiably return the money received as child welfare to the state, which plunged many families with dual citizenship into a social crisis.
He destroyed families; journalists are no longer safe
The affair caused quite a stir among the Dutch MPs, tax experts, the judiciary and civil society, prompting the then-Prime Minister Mark Rutte to resign. “Innocent people have been criminalised, and their lives ruined,” Rutte said remorsefully in his resignation statement, adding that he accepts full responsibility for the scandal.
However, in the March election, the unexpected happened. Mark Rutte’s VVD party received the most votes and won the mandate to form a new government, to which he also invited the D66 party, whose president is Sophie in ‘t Veld, and the CDA party. What could go wrong under the new government? In the summer, the world was shocked by the news of the murder of Dutch investigative journalist Peter R. de Vries in Amsterdam. In broad daylight, the journalist was shot in the head by a mobster as he was returning home from the studio of RTL Boulevard television. The murders of journalists are a much greater burden and concern of the Dutch Prime Minister in ensuring journalistic freedom than the witch hunt that Sophie in ‘t Veld has organised in Slovenia and other Visegrad countries.