HISTORY
The first inhabitants of the Netherlands were the bataves who lived in an area between the Rhine, Waal and Moezel rivers, known as Batavia-Island, and the Fries and other germanic people, who occupied the rest of the territory.
Carlomagno incorporated the country in his domain. Great parts of what is nowadays called Holland, was inundaded; so easily they passed from one to another owner. At the end of the mideaval they belonged to Austria, and in the 16th century they were under spanish control.
It was in this time that the nautic adventures began, and it worked out so well for Holland that in the last decades of the 17th century it became such a big colonial power that not only Europe, but also Asia were economically very dependent on trade with it.
And while in the east it was acquiering colonies, the country itself became independent in 1579, liberating itself from the Spanish suppression; all the provincies united and formed the republic of united provincies of the Netherlands.
The leadership was devided between the 'Generale Staaten' and a 'Stadhouder'; the first stadhouder was Willem van Oranje. He and his descendents conserved the same dignity until, influenced by the French revolution, whose armies conquered Holland, in 1795 the Republic of Batavia was proclaimed, which only lasted for 11 years and ended the rich life of the dutch people.
In 1806 Napoleon reformed this republic into a kingdom to give it to his brother Louis. He took over in 1810 and the Franch posessed Holland until 1813, in which year it proclaimed independence and chose Willem I van Oranje to be it's king.
In 1815, the Vienna congress proclaimed the Kingdom of the Netherlands, uniting Belgium and Holland; but this union was ended after the revolution in 1830.
Holland was reduced to about the size of what the old United Provincies had been, but preserved all of the colonies.
This nation was one of the few in Europe who maintained neutral in the first world war from 1914-1918, although the country was harmed severely; mainly because trade with other countries came to a halt.
In the second world war (1939-1945), also stayed neutral, but even so the country was invaded by Germany in 1940, and Queen Wilhelmina refuged with the government to England. When Japan intervened in WWII in 1942 it occupied the Dutch Indies.
At the end of WWII, the queen returned and ruled until 1948, when for health reasons and after 50 years of ruling, she stepped back in favor of her daughter princess Juliana.
In 1953 massive floods destroyed great part of the province of Zeeland; this event was the start signal for the so called Delta Plan, huge constructions of dams and bridges to shorten the coatline and to be able to protect the country from future events like that happening again. The building of these works took several decades.
In 1980 her daughter Beatrix assumed the throne
In march 1987, the first elections, in which 330.000 immigrants who resided in the country for more than 5 years,were allowed to vote, were held.
On may 1st 1988, the Irish Republican Army (IRA) assassinated 3 british government people in Amsterdam, as answer to the killing of 3 IRA members in Gibraltar. In june that same year the prime minister and the minister of foreign affairs visited Israel to celebrate it's 40th anniversary. They met various Israeli and palestinian leaders. As a result the foreign affais minister Hans van den Broek, signalled that the Netherlands would recognize officially the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), if the PLO did the same with Israel.
In may 1989, Joris Voorhoeve, leader of the conservative faccion of the Popular Party for Liberty and Democracy (VVD), used his veto right to stop a proposition on a national plan for the environment. This accion of the VVD, member of the govenmental coalition, provoced the dimision of the second cabinet formed by prime minister Ruud Lubbers. The 18th of June elections for the European Parlement were held and they were seen as a test for the governing coalition. The VVD and the Labour Party (PvdA) lost with significant numbers (VVD went down from 5 to 3 and PvdA from 9 to 8 representatives while the Christ-Democrats (CDA) strenghtened their position from 8 to 10)
The Green-Alliance, formed by the fusion of Progressive Party, Communist Party and the Pacifist Socialists, obtained a great result by winning 2 representatives. (Though the results were not significant because of the high absence of voters)
On september the 6th general elections were held ,also with a high absence number. The CDA equalled results of 1986 with 54 seats, VVD lost 5 and got 22, PvdA lost 3 got 49, the Democrats (D66) came to 12 seats and the Greens, 6. The CDA announced the formation of a center-left coalition with the PvdA (october 1989). The new government presided by Ruud Lubbers and Wim Kok as vice president and finance minister, focussed on plans for the environment, social security, unemployment and to maintain a politic of decreasing debts.
In march 1990 the municipal elections were held which were a disaster for the PvdA, which got only 24,8% of the votes, though it didn't affect the governing coalition.
After the Iraq invasion of Kuwait on august 2nd, the Netherlands contributedwith some forces to the international coalition.
The government-plans for 1992 caused new problems for the cabinet,the inform released by the OCDE indicated decrease spendings on social welfare and on housing for the poor(er), 2 of the main ingredients of a welfare state.
The cost of the German unification also diminished severely the exports to Germany, and brought Holland to a certain economic-growth stop, which created difficulties in some key industries (Fokker aviation factory, DAF truck factory)
·In 1991 the growth of the GDP was about 2%, while inflation came to about 4%. Unemployment grew little to 7,1% in 1991, also because dutch industries mainly invested abroad while foreign companies which invested in Holland hardly generated any jobs there. The most important goal of the dutch presidency of the EU was the Maastricht treaty (december 1992). The Netherlands complied quite good to the rules of the Schengen treaty on the immigration within the EU-borders defending an harmonic posture of all EU members on the asylum rights.
·In februari 1993 the dutch government partly legalized active euthanasy.
·In may 1994 the Labour Party (PvdA) obtain victory in national election winning 37 seats or 24% of the votes. Following these elections a 'purple' coalition of PvdA, VVD and D66 is formed. For the first time in modern history CDA is an opposition party.
·Between may 1994 and march 1995 the dutch people had to vote 4 times: National elections in may 1994 in which PvdA had to form the so called 'purple' coalition; European elections in june 1994 confirmed these results; the provincial elections of march 8th 1995 changed this completely, VVD won and D66 lost massive; CDA stabilized it's positions.
·In the winters of 1993 and 1995 floods caused severe damage in the Moezel and Rhine rivers surroundings.
last updated: 14 november 1997
