E-Network Healing Initiative Leadership Linkage (HILL)…..A Student Linkage Magazine Country: Netherlands Updated on 12.7.2016 KENSRI Editor: Shashank S Country Editor: Eva Benschop Country Asst. Editor SYMBOLS & SIGNIFICANCE

National Flag National Animal National Bird National Sport National Emblem Lion Black-tailed godwit Soccer Coat of Arms It does not have a national tree…

National Flower National Tree Currency Coin Stamp Tulip Euro Euro Official language: Dutch Dutch City Makes the Most of Its Park and It is Capital: Amsterdam Government: History! Hereditary Monarchy Unitary state For his installation at this year’s Sonsbeek, a Monarchy multidisciplinary public art exhibition in the Dutch Federacy city of Arnhem, Kevin van Braak built a Representative democracy woodworking shop and invited 25 other artists to Constitutional monarchy make furniture and sculptures to be placed inside Parliamentary system the city park. For the wood, Mr. van Braak used Population: 16.8 million. the park’s own felled trees — a clever spin on reuse, one of the themes of the event. There was only one problem: Because Sonsbeek park was once a site of the Battle of Arnhem, a key military conflict at the end of the Second World War, the wood was full of bullets and shrapnel. “At the saw mill I broke two saw belts and one saw lost 12 teeth,” Mr. van Braak said, guiding a visitor through the woodworking shop in May. The story of Mr. van Braak’s art project is emblematic of the larger narrative of Sonsbeek, which will run this year until Sept. 18. The exhibition was initiated in 1949 by Arnhem’s leaders in an effort to rejuvenate the city, about an hour’s drive from Amsterdam, and to bring some of the joy back to its war-torn park. The first edition of Sonsbeek featured more than 200 sculptures along the park’s pathways and was attended by more than 100,000 visitors. Many of the works tried, in one way or another, to process or commemorate the Netherlands’ traumatic wartime experience. Some sculptures from the first Sonsbeek — including “Phoenix,” a symbol for the city’s emergence from the ashes, by Ossip Zadkine — still stand in the park.

Music with a cause Art Sports The history of Dutch art is dominated by the Approximately 4.5 million of the Dutch Golden Age painting, mostly of about 1620- 16 million people in the 1680, when a very distinct style and new types of Netherlands are registered to painting were developed, though still keeping one of the 35,000 sports clubs in close links with Flemish Baroque painting. After the country. About two thirds of the end of the Golden Age, production of the population older than 15 paintings remained high, but ceased to inflence years participates in sports the rest of Europe as strongly. The Hague School weekly. of the 19th century re-interpreted the range of Soccer is the most popular sport subjects of the Golden Age in contemporary in the Netherlands, with field terms, and made Dutch painting once again a hockey and volleyball as the European leader. In the successive movements of second and third most popular art since the 19th century, the Dutch contribution team sports. Tennis, gymnastics has been best known from the work of the and golf are the three most individual figures of Vincent Van Gogh and Piet widely played individual sports. Mondrian, though both did their best work A number of native Dutch sports outside the Netherlands, and took some time to are also practiced, such as be appreciated. Amsterdam Impressionism had a fierljeppen mainly local impact, but the De Stijl movement, of (Polsstokverspringen), beugelen, which Mondrian was a member, was influential kaatsen, klootschieten, kolven abroad. and korfball.

Leader

PM: King Willem-Alexander with former queen Beatrix and Queen Maxima Mark Rutte

Environmental Sustainability In its Assessment of the Human Environment 2012, the PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency evaluates national government policy for the physical human environment and presents options for making improvements to this policy. This biannual report is published on the basis of the Article 4.2 of the Environmental Management Act. Supplementary up-to-date facts and figures about the environment, nature and spatial developments are provided on the Environmental Data Compendium website.

Learning from the past and present for the future

Past:

The Dutch Empire comprised the overseas territories controlled by the Dutch Republic and, later, the modern Netherlands from the 17th century to the mid-1950s. The Dutch followed Portugal and Spain in establishing an overseas colonial empire. For this, they were aided by their skills in shipping and trade and the surge of nationalism accompanying the struggle for independence from Spain. Before and later alongside the British, the Dutch initially built up colonial possessions based on indirect state capitalist corporate colonialism, via the Dutch East and West India Companies. Dutch exploratory voyages such as those led by Willem Barents, Henry Hudson and Abel Tasman revealed vast new territories to Europeans, particularly in the Arctic Sea, North America, in the Pacific, Australia, and New Zealand.

Present:

Since 2002, Christian-democrats and liberals have mostly led the Dutch governments interchangeably. In 2015, the government consists of the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) and the Labor Party (Pedal), supported by various small political groups in the Senate. On May 6, 2002, the murder of Pym Fortuyn, a right-wing populist calling for a very strict policy on immigration, shocked the country. His party became a major political force after the elections, significantly changing the political landscape. However, lack of leadership and fighting within the party caused them to lose much of their following in elections the next year. Another political murder took place on November 2, 2004, when film director and publicist Theo van Gogh was assassinated by a Dutch-Moroccan radical Islamist. This sparked debate about radical Islam in the Netherlands, and on immigration and integration (or lack thereof) as well.

Future:

The most important event for the Dutch economy in the 21st century is the introduction of the euro and the subsequent discontinuation of the use of the guilder in 2002. With EMU, the Dutch will gain a number of advantages, including even lower transaction costs for importing and exporting goods with its EU partners. However, EMU will also mean that the Dutch have less control over their monetary policy, since a new European Central Bank will control most aspects of policy surrounding the euro. This might be problematic for the Dutch since the government has traditionally used monetary policy to help trade. EMU will probably mean that the Dutch will have to make a stronger effort to control inflation. This could potentially slow down the economy's rapid growth.One potential domestic problem for the Dutch economy is that prosperity across the nation is not uniform. The northern regions tend to be less affluent and have less industry than the southern and western regions. In light of this problem, the government has initiated a variety of programs to attract new business to the less-prosperous regions. However, these programs have not had a major impact on the regions' economy yet. The kingdom's abundant natural gas supply and its strong agricultural sector will help the nation do well even in case of an economic recession among the EU nations. Although the Dutch economy is dependent on foreign trade, exports of energy supplies and foodstuffs tend to remain strong even during economic downturns. In addition, the presence of a number of large, multinational firms in the country means that foreign trade is likely to continue to expand as these corporations persist in opening new markets for Dutch goods and services and provide access to new or less expensive products and services for Dutch consumers. The expanding trade between the United States and the Netherlands also bodes well for the future of the Dutch economy. The United States remains the largest single market for products and services in the world. Because of their volume of trade with the EU and the United States, the Dutch have access to both of the globe's main consumer markets. Dutch trade with Asia continues to lag, however, and efforts to improve exports to the region have not been successful because of the competitive nature of the market and the area's economic slowdown in the late 1990s.