D-day II for Europe. Trouble in store for Amsterdam? Refusing the refusers. Priests who do what they ought not to. Ash troubles for the prince.

One story makes page one of nearly all today’s papers. De Telegraaf labels it “Last Chance for Europe”.  The headline in de Volkskrant is “D-Day in Europe” – which is clearly not a reference to the anniversary of the June 1944 invasion of Normandy. No, this is a very different D-Day. This is the one when Europe’s leaders need – we are told from all sides - to come up with a REAL solution to the crisis surrounding the euro, the currency now shared by 17 European countries, including the Netherlands.

Tension and dominoes
Free commuter daily Spits devotes almost all its front page to an image of a row of dominoes, each one covered with a different European flag, starting to tumble. It’s the Greek domino starting the whole chain effect, with the Italian domino second in line.

Under a headline which reads “Will the euro fall to pieces”, Spits provides a short and succinct summary of the situation. 
 
“Tension mounts [...] will the European leaders actually take some meaningful decisions today? Even [Dutch Finance] Minister De Jager tried his hand at some ‘expectation management’ yesterday. It may be that today is spent talking through more details, he warned.”

Spits goes on to comment that if – almost - nothing comes out of today’s summit: “Well, no plan at all is a plan too, as is a bad plan. In both cases the financial markets will lose yet more confidence in the euro and Europe will slide even further into an economic abyss of unknown depth."

That seems to about cover it, I suppose...
 
Trouble brewing – again?
Another of the country’s three free papers, ‘quality’ sheet Dagblad De Pers, looks at a potential source of trouble today, in Amsterdam. Following Sunday’s clashes with police when members the Dutch Turkish community followed up a protest against Kurdish PKK violence in the land of their fathers by marching on a Kurdish community centre - it now looks like a bigger demonstration could take place today.

De Pers reports “The organisers of the demo are fairly ambitious - they expect some 10,000 to 20,000 angry Turks this afternoon.” It also tells us that the call to protest is being spread, as happened with the riots in London earlier this year, by pinging [messaging] on Blackberry phones and via web chatrooms. It cites one message “Another Turks vs. Kurds riot Wednesday @ Museum Square 5 p.m. Anti-PKK”.
 
There have been complaints following Sunday’s violence that the police should have stopped the breakaway group of Turks going to the Kurdish centre in the first place.  Given that they didn’t, you can’t help wondering how the ‘strong arm’ will respond today if several thousand young men do turn up on Museum Square today, all wound up and ready for a riot?

De Pers speaks to some of these ‘angry young men’ and finds it’s not only the Kurds who they are angry with: “Many Turks believe the Netherlands is shielding the PKK [...] and that Dutch media paint a much too rosy picture of members of the PKK”.

One man responds to De Pers via a chatroom: “Every drop of blood that falls on the ground because of PKK terrorism, you are jointly responsible for.”

Say “I do” and not “I won’t”
Several papers today, cover the news that the anti-Islam Freedom Party led by Geert Wilders – which has a formal ‘parliamentary support’ agreement with the minority coalition government - is to put forward a proposal in parliament for civil servants who perform marriages in this country to be obliged to marry same-sex couples too. At the moment, the government is against the sacking of public servants who refuse to perform same-sex weddings.

Faith-based paper Trouw reports that Interior Minister Piet Hein Donner (Christian Democrat) and Culture Minister Marja van Bijsterveldt (also Christian Democrat) “disagree with a decision by the Equal Rights Commission, which ruled in 2008 that municipalities may require civil servants to perform all marriages, as they are also obliged to comply with the law.” 
    
This could make for another split between the cabinet and the party that’s meant to prop it up, and certainly makes for a parliamentary majority against the cabinet’s policy of tolerating gay-wedding ‘refusers’ among municipal staff.

Priests who do what they ought not
Staying in much the same area, de Volkskrant has feature on ‘underground’ gay marriages in the Catholic church, which – it says – involve some crafty manoeuvring by the officiating priests. These clerics “often don’t dare to come out about this, because they’re risking their jobs.”

The article focuses on weddings performed publicly, in a church, and not - as one gay man tells the paper – hidden away somewhere. One priest has reportedly performed ten such ceremonies which, as professor of practical theology Ruard Ganzevoort tells the paper, “however much the services may resemble one another, can never be a real wedding service because the church does not allow that”.

One wedding of two gay men was held at an Amsterdam church in 2001, with around 175 guests in attendance. The words off the officiating priest are quoted: “Henceforth the congregation shall regard you as married. May God confirm and bless your marriage”.

Interestingly, Professor Ganzevoort says that 30 years ago this kind of ‘blessing’ of gay relations was a lot easier, but the church has got much more orthodox since then. “The Vatican wants totally loyal conduct,” he says.

Sack (the real estate advisor) and ashes for the prince?
Finally, De Telegraaf has some bad news for heir-to-the-throne Prince Willem-Alexander: “Prince’s dream under volcanic ash”. 

Seems ‘Lex’ and his Argentinian wife Máxima chose the wrong location for a holiday home over there in South America. The land they bought in Argentinian village Villa La Angostura – not far from a range of volcanic mountains - is reportedly now buried under ash and sand. 

A local emergency worker tells De Telegraaf “Rich people think that they’re buying into paradise here, but this is one of the most dangerous places on earth.” There are not only volcanoes, but also “earthquakes, forest fires, tsunamis and avalanches. Tell your crown prince that next time he should come get our advice first.”