The brain behind Big Brother now has a whole TV channel to play with. Dutch kids seem happy with a pass mark as exam results get worse by the year. The government is struggling with the EU to toughen its immigration rules, as Dutch tolerance looks like a thing of the past. The world seems to prefer the despot it knows in Syria, according to the Dutch press. And there are too many tulips in Amsterdam as temperatures soar. 

Big Brother boss buys TV channel
“Big Brother is coming to save the media,” runs nrc.next’s headline. It’s not actually referring to the mother of all reality TV formats, but to the man who invented it and inflicted it on the world, John de Mol. He’s taken over the Dutch branch of TV company SBS, in a joint bid with publisher Sanoma – famous for the Donald Duck comic, de Volkskrant informs us.
 
The TV format king’s first venture into broadcasting ownership was a flop. He set up his own channel in 2005, but it lasted only a couple of years. Now he’s played safe by buying up an existing success story.
 
John de Mol is a man who can come up with a hit TV format while he shaves in the morning, according to Volkskrant commentator Bert Wagendorp – and check the value of his shares at the same time. And his main reason for buying SBS is to use it as a testing ground for “a load of junk” which he can then market all over the world, the columnist writes. You have been warned.
 
Dutch kids happy with 6 out of 10
Dutch kids are getting worse at Dutch, English and maths, Trouw and de Volkskrant report. Exam results are in the subjects have been falling for years, says Trouw. The problem is worst at the top level of secondary education, aimed at children heading for university, if you read Trouw. Going by de Volkskrant, the lower level schools are the worst performers. Whichever you believe, it seems the average exam result has fallen from 6.4 out of 10 to 6.1 over the past five years.
 
“So what’s going wrong?” Trouw asks the chief schools inspector. Well, they don’t really know, she says. But she reckons it could be down to the pupil’s attitude. In the Netherlands it’s infamously known as the national ‘sixes culture’ – students take the attitude that a six-out-of-ten pass grade is good enough, so relax – why work harder? Meanwhile UNESCO regularly reports that Dutch kids are the happiest in the world. Could there be a link?
 
Dutch clash with Europe on immigration clampdown
“Dutch Poles are discovering the ‘myth’ of tolerance,” according to NRC Handelsblad. “The Dutch are only tolerant when things are going well,” says one Polish immigrant. “In worse times you see it’s a myth.” The social affairs minister has announced a “tough package of measures” to clamp down on immigration from Eastern Europe. But according to members of the Polish community, his plans are in breach of EU law.
 
Meanwhile, immigration and asylum minister Gerd Leers is also having a hard time getting the EU to agree to his tougher immigration laws, says Trouw. To put Dutch government policy on immigration into practice, the minister will need to get no fewer than five European directives changed. “Unfeasible and naive,” say the opposition. The minister is putting a positive spin on his chances, the Protestant paper says, but the arguments behind his plans “aren’t really convincing”. 
 
At least he’ll be happy to read in Trouw that the Netherlands is now successfully whisking asylum seekers through its application procedure more quickly, with more than half hearing whether they can stay within eight days. Unless he reads left-leaning de Volkskrant, with its glass-half-empty interpretation of the figures: “around half” of the asylum applicants still have to wait longer than two weeks.
 
Governments prefer devil they know in Syria
Syria has got rid of its state of emergency, but not its oppression, says Trouw. As protests in the country go on, the Dutch foreign minister says he’s concerned at the continuing use of force against opponents of the regime.
 
The ending of the state of emergency is too little too late, one Syrian protester tells de Volkskrant. “We want freedom for all,” reads the banner in a blurry mobile phone photo of demonstrators.
 
But Syria’s neighbours “prefer a despot they know”, according to Trouw. President Bashar al-Assad has never been popular in the region, but now his regime is under pressure, neighbouring governments aren’t exactly clamouring for his departure.
 
And the West is taking a similar stance, according to de Volkskrant’s analysis. The attitude is “You know what you’ve got with Assad in the saddle, you don’t know what you’ll get if he disappears from the stage,” the paper observes. Which means Western countries are being a lot more cautious about backing protests in Syria compared to uprisings in Tunisia or Egypt. 
 
The dark side of Dutch sunshine
Come to sunny Holland. It’s the hottest country in Europe at the moment, De Telegraaf is pleased to announce on its front page. A glance at the paper’s weather report reveals that in fact a little corner of the country is possibly joint warmest with Austria. But the balmy April weather is still a reason for the popular dailies to print summery pictures of kids frolicking in canals.
 
However, there’s a downside to the sunny weather, we learn in the middle pages. Tulips are coming up so fast, the market is swamped and the flowers aren’t worth selling. Farmers are complaining about months of drought. Café owners are struggling to find enough waitresses to serve the throngs of people on their terraces. And red-eyed hay fever sufferers are having to cope with air like pollen soup. Life’s tough in Europe’s hottest country.