Netherlands

Quotas are unpopular, especially in the liberal Netherlands. But next week its parliament is expected to impose a quota system to ensure major businesses employ more women at the highest levels. A law is being tabled in parliament which would force listed companies to have at least a third of women (or, indeed, a third of men) on their supervisory boards. Another 5,000 Dutch companies will need to come up with ‘appropriate and ambitious’ measures for increasing female leadership. Meanwhile a government website now showcases board-ready Topvrouwen (top women) to take up these posts.

It is more than two centuries since the last Anglo-Dutch war, but our neighbours across the North Sea are once again fearful of an English invasion. Last night, the Dutch parliament voted for an unprecedented restriction on personal freedoms, a curfew between 9pm and 4.30am, because of fears that the new B117 variant of the coronavirus discovered in the UK, will flood the Netherlands. While infection levels seem to be creeping down to around 5,400 a day, after a spike over the Christmas break, the Dutch public health institute reckons that ten per cent of new cases are what they variously (and carelessly) call the 'British', the 'English' or, 'the UK' variant. This number is expected to rise.

The Netherlands has a reputation as one of the sensible, efficient countries of Europe. Asked to predict which government was most likely to collapse in the face of a national scandal, many EU watchers would not have bet on Mark Rutte’s government. But while the political fallout has been extraordinary — Rutte cycled to the palace earlier today to tender his entire cabinet’s resignation to the king — the scandal that preceded it has a curiously Dutch feel. Their failure? Mismanagement of the country’s complex child benefit system. Thousands of parents have been driven to financial ruin.