Some counterpoints: the Luxembourg flag fades into one of those (France?). Russia and Ukraine both had the chance to redesign their flags after the fall of the Soviet Union, and I never mistook the even simpler Ukrainian flag. Maritime signals are full of distinctive pennants that don't resemble any of the above.
For the record it's the Netherlands' flag that
fades into Luxembourg's flag. There have been instances of foreign countries mistakenly hoisting Luxembourg's flag at sporting events attended by Dutch athletes or even when hosting the Dutch monarch. Embarassing, but understandable given the similarity.
Can confirm it's the same in NL. The average monthly energy payment is about five times as high as it was last year. We went from €75 to around €350. We are a rich but very frugal small household. We have friends with kids who are facing energy bills higher than their mortgage even though their consumption is not excessive (all the family members wash frequently but they don't spend half an hour in the shower, they don't have a heated pool or six freezers). We can afford it but food, gas and energy bills have become so high that many on a low-income can no longer afford them. There's a huge demand on food banks, everyone is angry, inflation is 17%, everyone hates the government. This feels way worse than anything related to Covid.
Have you seen a urban / rural split in these effects? When I travelled through NL this past summer I saw all those red scarves on car mirrors up on the rural northwest, which I took to be a protest against the government.
In my country, it seems that rural and suburban people are hit much harder than those of us who live in apartments in the city. A large part of this is naturally energy prices, as people in their own houses are hit directly by the heating costs, while a rented apartment (and with the form of almost-rent control we have here) makes the price hikes slower. Add the increased need of cars outside of the city to that and it's amplified.
This seems to have amplified the city vs country side-difference in voting in our recent government elections, and strengthening an urban-left and rural-right trend in the political landscape. This is kind of new here, it used to be more economical divides and not geographical.
I've not yet heard any pro-Russian sentiments in any of the major political parties (as in "seats in the parliament") though. Some of the far left have had a peace-focus that can be seen as a giving a pro-Russian stance in the next level of analysis, but no-one says "Yay Putin!" out loud at least. To say "Boo NATO! Boo USA!" is more common, but again mainly on the political extremes.
There is definitely an urban/rural split in Dutch politics, but it's not related to rising energy prices.
In terms of energy prices there is widespread support for subsidising the energy consumption of those hit the hardest, who were overwhelmingly struggling to begin with. The split, if any, is between the coalition parties and the opposition parties, with the latter criticising the former for taking too little action too late. At the risk of overgeneralising I'd say the coalition is more centrist whereas the opposition represents the more extreme (but not necessarily extremist!) ends of the political spectrum.
The urban/rural split has different causes. For a long time there has been growing discontent in rural areas about a wide range of topics. Public services such as public transportation in rural areas has been lagging behind those in urban areas or even deteriorated. Desirable and well-paying jobs are far more common in the cities than in the country. Many rural areas have been seeing an outflux of people, especially the young, the highly educated and women. The demographic make-up of some rural areas has consequently been trending toward older people and men with low levels of education. Due to the demographic and economic decline, businesses have been withdrawing from the smallest villages especially, so gone are the days that each village had its own bank, supermarket etc. Rural areas have also tended to hold more conservative views on gay, trans and animal rights, racism, immigration and so on and have complained about progressive cultural norms being imposed on them by city-based lawmakers and activists. Parties on the fringes of the political spectrum get an outsized part of their support from such areas.
I should stress by the way that the urban/rural split in the Netherlands is only a matter of relative deprivation. Dutch rural areas are still far more desirable to live in than, say, rural areas in Russia. Given the Netherlands' population density, 'rural' areas in the Dutch context are also far denser and better connected than those in France or Germany, let alone the US or Russia.
The simmering resentment that has been building up in rural areas for years came to a head with the 'nitrogen crisis'. The Netherlands as a whole has been emitting far too much nitrogen to meet environmental standards for decades. Many ecosystems are threatened as a result. Dutch politicians have been neglecting to deal with this for decades because it would bring them into conflict with strong vested interests and jeopardise their re-election. As a result of environmentalist organisations successfully suing the government and the EU ending certain emission exemptions, Dutch politicians have now finally been forced to take action. Their proposed policies have targeted Dutch farmers because the agricultural sector's nitrogen emissions are disproportionately high relative to its share of GDP. Other major emitters, like heavy industry and transportation, have so far not been targeted. This has generated a great deal of unrest and protests in rural areas, some of which you saw during your visit. It's a double tragedy because the nitrogen crisis need never have become a crisis if it had been tackled earlier and because the belated government response has, in my view, been badly mismanaged.
Topic: Ukraine (Read 772078 times)