Maarten Camps, a former top civil servant at the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate, twice pressured independent supervisor Theodor Kockelkoren of the State Supervision on Mines (SodM) to postpone the publication of its advice on how many homes in the Groningen earthquake zone need to be strengthened. That is remarkable because the SodM’s independent advisory task is legally protected, NRC reports.
Dutch government falls as deaths mount in COVID-19 pandemic
On January 15, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte announced his government’s resignation ahead of national elections scheduled for March 17. He will head a caretaker government until then.
Rutte claimed that his resignation aimed to redress the wrong committed in a 2013-2019 welfare scandal, where the Dutch state falsely accused 26,000 parents of dual-national families of welfare fraud, improperly forcing them to pay back tens of thousands of euros in child benefit. “With this decision, the government wants to do justice to all those parents who have been unprecedentedly wronged,” Rutte said. “The rule of law should protect citizens from the all-powerful government, and that has gone horribly wrong here.”
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