The Netherlands has been shaken up by an earthquake. The Dutch prime minister breaks a taboo and says countries that break the rules should be thrown out of the euro. A top Dutch academic has been fooling the world with research results he made up himself. The government has got its sums wrong on a controversial cutback. And a gold star for Dutch primary school kids – their test results are getting better.

Dutch PM: kick troublemakers out of the euro
“The ultimate sanction in future can be to force countries to leave the euro,” says Prime Minister Mark Rutte in a letter to Britain's The Financial Times. This is front page news for de Volkskrant. Up to now it’s been a taboo for EU prime ministers even to mention the possibility, the paper says.

But it’s easier said than done, de Volkskrant points out. “You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave,” the paper quotes the lyrics of the song Hotel California. At present there’s deliberately no way for a country to leave the euro – it would mean leaving the EU entirely. And what would be the consequences? “The mother of all crises,” the paper goes on to explore at length.

But Trouw puts a positive spin on Mr Rutte’s remarks on European finance. The PM also said he wants to see a European commissioner appointed to supervise the budgets of EU countries. “For a prime minister who until recently declared he would stand in the way of any further transfer of Dutch sovereignty to Brussels, this is a major u-turn,” the paper’s editorial observes with satisfaction. “The Dutch cabinet has both feet firmly back on European ground.”

Earthquake shakes up the Netherlands
The south of the Netherlands was hit by an earthquake on Thursday evening, the papers report. The epicentre was actually across the border in Xanten, Germany, we see from AD’s map.

No rubble, walls of water or death toll, fortunately. Trouw doesn’t even bother to report it. Thought the paper does carry a front page reminder – presumably by coincidence – that it’s six months since the Japanese tsunami. However, earthquakes in this corner of Europe are modest affairs.

“I thought someone was pushing my chair from behind,” Yolande from Venlo told De Telegraaf. “My keyboard started vibrating,” her daughter adds. “And a book fell off the shelf.”

Nevertheless there were many calls to the police and “panic in the streets” in Venlo, according to de Volkskrant. And at least one fatality. “My parakeets were worked up all day,” Tosca from Nijmegen told de Telegraaf. “They felt it coming. Yesterday morning I found one dead on the floor of his cage.” (This tragic death took place before the earthquake actually happened, you’ll notice, but let’s not spoil the story.)

What’s more, the quake was even felt here in Hilversum, AD reports. “I felt my desk suddenly shaking,” a Radio Netherlands Worldwide editor told the paper.

Scientist made up study results
Meat-eaters are selfish and anti-social, a study by leading Dutch psychologists found. Good story, eh? That’s what media all over the world thought too. A shame it’s not true. It turns out Professor Diederik Stapel never did the research and simply made up the results, as all the papers report this morning.

The media-friendly scientist was the “golden boy” of the academic world and played in the science “premier league”, says nrc.next. But Professor Stapel is actually a fraudster. He’s been suspended by Tilburg University.

The case won’t really harm the image of social psychology, according to de Volkskrant. But De Telegraaf is up in arms. “Particularly in the US and England the reliability of Dutch scientists and their ‘authoritative research’ is now in doubt,” the paper complains. And with so much pressure on academics to publish, lots more of them of them are probably making up their results, the editor worries. “A stricter form of assessment and control is needed to guarantee the necessary confidence in science.”

Government gets health cutback sums wrong
The government is in even hotter water than ever about one of its most hated cutback plans, Trouw and de Volkskrant report. The PGB is a benefit paid to people with special health care needs so they can buy in their own care in the home. The government is determined largely to scrap it, thus saving a fortune.

But now the Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis (CPB) has totted up the savings and says the cabinet has got its sums wrong. The government was banking on a saving of 900 million euros, but the CPB can’t make it add up to more than two thirds of that amount, the papers report. To make matters worse, the cutback will cost 20,000 jobs.

The deputy health minister is making the best of it, saying that at least the report shows the PGB benefits are unaffordable in the long term. But the opposition are gleeful. As one D66 party MP puts it, the cabinet has “made a hash of it”.

Dutch school kids get better marks
Dutch kids are doing better at school, AD and de Volkskrant report. The national testing organisation CITO says primary school kids are improving at arithmetic and language. AD has a graph to show how the test results have shot up in the past couple of years.

It’s surprising, says a CITO spokeswoman tells the paper, because in recent years the Dutch children’s performance has been disappointing compared to other countries. And they’ve no idea what’s caused the improvement. “Let’s hope the trend continues,” says the spokeswoman.