After a year of chaos, the Dutch hope to return to real issues
Voters want to talk about housing, but Geert Wilders wants to talk about asylum-seekers
ANYONE CAN quit a government, but it is a neat trick to quit one that has already quit. On August 22nd Caspar Veldkamp, the Dutch foreign minister, resigned after other cabinet members frustrated his modest efforts to toughen Dutch policy towards Israel. The four other ministers from his party, New Social Contract (NSC), left too. Yet technically they had already stepped down: the coalition fell on June 3rd, and elections are scheduled for October 29th. NSC was leaving the caretaker government meant to run the country until a new one is formed.
Explore more
This article appeared in the Europe section of the print edition under the headline “A house divided”
Ten years later, “Wir schaffen das” has proved a pyrrhic victory
The providential folly of Angela Merkel’s migration policy
Why Poland is becoming less central European and more Baltic
Thanks to energy and security concerns, its centre of gravity is shifting north
Time for some Merz-Macron magic
The leaders of France and Germany meet to kickstart Europe
Ukraine shows off a deadly new cruise missile
But sceptics wonder if it is too good to be true
France is in big trouble, again
Why Macron’s prime minister called a shock confidence vote over its debt
The War Room newsletter: Archive 1945 comes to a close
Fraser McIlwraith, a news editor, reflects on an eight-month project about the second world war