Pomp and pageantry mix with doom and gloom on Budget Day. The Dutch battle out a war of tulips with the Romanians. An asparagus farmer stands trial for ‘modern slavery’. Dog lovers are warned pedigree pooches are disaster dogs. And WHO celebrates Alzheimer Day?

Budget Day – the speech, the hats, the message
There’s lots of pictures of lots of hats today in the papers. The Third Tuesday in September is traditionally Budget Day in the Netherlands, also known as Princes’ Day. It is a day of pomp and ceremony, in which Queen Beatrix makes a tour of The Hague in her Golden Carriage to deliver her Speech from the Throne in parliament.

AD opens with “Glorious Princes’ Day, gloomy message”. Trouw headlines “Big words, little hope”, NRC Handelsblad tells us “No one will be spared” and De Telegraaf simply warns “Brace yourselves”. De Volkskrant analyses what was in the speech written by the government. The paper says the tone was very businesslike and did not contain any triumphant, anti-left rhetoric as Prime Minister Mark Rutte relies on the support of the left-wing opposition too. Trouw sums up the topics that were not mentioned in the speech : nature, sustainability, culture.

While making his case for small government, Prime Minister Rutte expects a big society which will roll up its sleeves and get to work in the face of a raft of austerity measures. The opposition criticise his “lack of vision”. In de Volkskrant both Labour leader Job Cohen and Democrats D66 leader Alexander Pechtold comment on the difference between the budget document which is peppered with references to Europe and the Queen’s Speech which hardly mentions it.

AD looks on the bright side quoting the prime minister “We will come out of this stronger.” Nrc.next points out that in reality we are all financially better off than we used to be. 

War of the tulips on Romanian border
A dispute between the Netherlands and Romania is fast becoming known as the War of the Tulips. Dutch truckers carrying flowers, bulbs and seeds are being prevented from crossing the Romanian border. The authorities there say they fear the blooms are carrying a “dangerous bacteria”. AD reports that the authorities are also checking the drivers’ working hours and technical defects on the lorries, which is not normal practice.

The paper points out that the stricter controls were introduced just one day after the Dutch government decided to block entry of Romania and Bulgaria into the border-free Schengen zone. The European Christian Democrats and the Freedom Party have called on Brussels to take action against Bucharest. Asylum and Immigration Minister Gerd Leers sees the blockade as all the more reason to keep Romania out of the Schengen zone.

Meanwhile the Romanian embassy has refused to comment on the matter. But Romanian Foreign Minister Teodor Baconschi is furious about the Dutch position on his country’s entry into the Schengen zone. He says “The Netherlands is allowing itself to be held hostage by the anti-European and anti-immigration agenda of an extremist party,” referring to the Freedom Party.

The paper writes it is not clear whether there is a link between the two issues. While the row continues into its fourth day, the blooms are beginning to wilt and the blockade has cost the horticultural sector 100,000 euros.

Asparagus farmer tried for ‘modern slavery’
An asparagus farmer from the southern Dutch province of Brabant has denied ‘modern slavery’ in court, reports de Volkskrant. The farmer, José Jansen, is accused of human trafficking and labour exploitation. The Public Prosecutor says she seriously took advantage of the vulnerable position of the Romanian, Portuguese and Polish workers. She says she is a hard-working woman who has had her business taken away from her.

De Volkskrant reports the farmer paid far below the minimum wage and only paid workers at the end of the season. She confiscated their passports and identity papers and banned them from leaving the farm at night. The grounds were guarded by an aggressive dog. The workers were housed in small, dirty rooms. Some did not have windows and none met fire safety standards. In return for the poor living conditions and bad food, workers had to fork out 13 euros a day and pay exorbitant prices at the farm shop.

When police raided the farm in 2009, they found 36 petrified Romanians. Conditions were so bad they wanted to return to their country immediately. Nevertheless, the farmer was given a second chance only to be arrested again a year later. And in June 2011 things were no better. Meanwhile the farm has been auctioned off to pay off a number of labour inspectorate fines and overdue taxes. In her defence her lawyer says, “Mrs Jansen was not worse or better than a normal employer in the horticultural sector.” Unfortunately, he may be right.

Pedigree pooch is disaster dog
Dog lovers shouldn’t buy pedigree dogs, Trouw warns. Apparently Labradors, German Shepherd dogs and Great Danes are among the breeds at the top of a pedigree blacklist put online by a legal foundation for animal rights, Animal and Law.

The foundation thinks all 80 breeds which it has ranked according to health problems are disaster dogs. Spokesperson for the foundation Hans Baaij says the number of illnesses pedigree dogs have is frightening. “I’ve been told that if you squeeze a Chihuahua, its eyes pop out.”

The problem is that the dogs are bred for their looks, but it’s gone so far that it’s affected their health. Many of them suffer from tiredness, cancer, epilepsy, blindness and have breathing difficulties. Surprisingly, fighting dogs have fewer health problems because they are bred to be strong, not pretty.

WHO celebrates Alzheimer's Day?
World Alzheimer's Day is being marked in the Netherlands by the publication of a book Kiss me awake, full of photos and poetry describing the world of an Alzheimer patient. Some of the poems are written by the patients themselves. “Today’s not a success, I eat nasty things and see ugly people”, one patient writes. The World Health Organisation, which dedicated this day to the disease, says by the middle of the century there will be half a million people with Alzheimer's.