The Wilders trial rumbles on, while continuing government cuts provide fodder for the papers. Submarines sail on regardless, there’s talk of a ‘Health World Cup’, and a bra is intellectual property. It’s all in the Dutch dailies.

Wilders trial
The papers can’t decide what today’s big story is or even, for that matter, what today’s bigger stories are. Trouw goes for the trial of anti-Islam Freedom Party (PVV) leader Geert Wilders, which is nearing its close. The paper remarks that after all the courtroom dramas of the past seven months, we might have forgotten what the case is actually about.

The Christian-based daily says it centres on where the law fixes the boundaries of freedom of expression. Mr Wilders is charged with incitement to hatred and defamation of Muslims. In the summing-up stage, the public prosecutor has called for a not guilty verdict on all counts, saying that, although the politician’s anti-Muslim comments caused real distress, they were within the law.

The paper points out that interest in the case has dropped off considerably despite that fact that it is now reaching its judicial climax. Just a handful of journalists were in court and the public gallery was almost deserted. Maybe this might indicate that the story does not deserve a front-page slot.

On an inside page, De Telegraaf points out that the lawyer for one of the complainants in the case had his closing speech “censored” by the judges. When he addressed the court at an earlier stage, he failed to limit himself to a description of the damage suffered by his clients, instead indulging in what might be described as an anti-Wilders rant.

This time the judges were taking no chances: they took the text of his speech and, after half an hour, handed it back to him heavily edited and a good deal shorter.

Read the RNW coverage of the story

Cuts and more cuts
The latest government cuts are always good for a story, but again the papers find it difficult to hone in on one particular area of public savings. Both AD and De Telegraaf report on the dropping of subsidies for fuel-efficient cars. AD says the present exemption from purchase tax and road tax for the economical models has proved too expensive – the purchase-tax break alone is said to be costing the government 700 million euros a year.

Left-of-centre de Volkskrant plumps for the government’s cuts to social security, sheltered work places for disabled people and benefits for young people with a disability. It says Deputy Social Affairs Minister Paul de Krom showed “flair and self-confidence” when he defended the shake-up against the onslaught of opposition criticism in parliament yesterday.

It’s a good job he did, with MPs condemning the “anti-social” plan to saddle local councils with the job of cutting nearly 2 billion euros a year off the benefits’ budget. Mr De Krom countered with hard-hitting facts: we already spend eight times the European average on disabled workers – and 61 times more than Germany.

Read the RNW coverage of the story

Escape from the cuts
The cuts can occasionally provide upbeat news. Today’s de Volkskrant also points out why the navy’s submarines have escaped unscathed from the government’s savage round of defence cuts. Only the Netherlands has middle-sized submarines, it informs us.

They are not as big as those of the United States and Great Britain and can therefore get closer to the shore for intelligence gathering operations. However, they are still big enough to travel long distances. The American are “as pleased as Punch about the Dutch submarines,” crows the left-of-centre daily.

The ‘Health World Cup’
The news that people between the ages of 55 and 75 will from 2013 be screened for colon cancer is picked up by several papers. Health Minister Edith Schippers tells nrc.next: “By the time people go to the doctor with problems and the disease is diagnosed, it’s mostly already in a late stage”. Nationwide screening should pick the cancer up in the early stages. It’s estimated this will save 2,400 lives a year.

AD goes to the doctors for a reaction to the news. Professor Ernst Kuipers from Rotterdam’s Erasmus Medical centre is overjoyed. He explains that nationwide screening has been put off for some time and that now, in the present era of cutbacks, he and his team had all but given up hope. He tells the paper that he now “feels like the Netherlands has won the World Cup”.

Read the RNW coverage of the story

Bra is 'intellectual property’
Leave it to nrc.next to provide us with today’s really big story. “A bra is more than just two cups and straps,” reads an inside-page headline. Dutch underwear designer Marlies Dekkers has taken a competitor, who copied a line of Dekkers bras and panties, to court and won.

A Utrecht court yesterday ruled that Ms Dekkers’ take on the bras sported by the pin-up girls of the 1950s – bras with straps – was “original” enough to be her “intellectual property”. Now, rival firm Sapph will no longer be able to make copies of Dekkers’ designs. But, it’s not all plain sailing for Ms Dekkers: “the straps-hype is over,” whinges the paper.