Thousands of people in the Netherlands defied a ban on assembling and demonstrated Sunday against the Dutch government’s coronavirus lockdown measures, gathering on a central square before marching toward a park in Amsterdam.
Read more at:
Thousands gather to oppose Dutch virus measures despite ban | AP News
Showing posts with label Amsterdam. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Amsterdam. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 4, 2022
Friday, May 21, 2021
The Netherlands: Amsterdam to become first city in the world to ban advertising by fossil fuels companies
Amsterdam is set to be the first city in the world to ban ads from fossil fuel and aviation companies in a bid to reduce the ‘excesses’ of fossil fuel advertising.
This means that fossil-fuelled vehicles, such as petrol cars and flights, will no longer be advertised in Amsterdam subway stations or the city centre.
The new law follows mass movements in and around the capital which were headed up by the Reclame Fossielvrij (Fossil Free Advertising) initiative. The group co-ordinated a letter from over 50 local organisations demanding Amsterdam to go fossil free.
“The decision to ban fossil fuel advertising from subway stations comes at a crucial moment in the fight against climate change. Adverts that portray fossil fuels as normal worsen climate disruption and have no place in a city − or a country − that has complied with Paris,” says Amsterdam Mayor Femke Sleegers, coordinator of Reclame Fossielvrij.
Read more at: Amsterdam to become first city in the world to ban this type of advert | Euronews
This means that fossil-fuelled vehicles, such as petrol cars and flights, will no longer be advertised in Amsterdam subway stations or the city centre.
The new law follows mass movements in and around the capital which were headed up by the Reclame Fossielvrij (Fossil Free Advertising) initiative. The group co-ordinated a letter from over 50 local organisations demanding Amsterdam to go fossil free.
“The decision to ban fossil fuel advertising from subway stations comes at a crucial moment in the fight against climate change. Adverts that portray fossil fuels as normal worsen climate disruption and have no place in a city − or a country − that has complied with Paris,” says Amsterdam Mayor Femke Sleegers, coordinator of Reclame Fossielvrij.
Read more at: Amsterdam to become first city in the world to ban this type of advert | Euronews
Monday, February 15, 2021
The Netherlands: Brexit: Amsterdam surpasses London as Europe’s leading share trading hub - by Ben Chapman
Amsterdam has surpassed London as Europe’s leading share trading hub in the wake of Brexit.
An average €9.2bn shares a day were traded on Euronext Amsterdam and the Dutch arms of CBOE Europe and Turquoise in January, according to data from CBOE Europe first reported by the Financial Times.
EU-based financial firms are banned from trading in London because the EU has not recognised UK regulations on exchanges as equivalent to its own.
Read more at: Brexit: Amsterdam surpasses London as Europe’s leading share trading hub | The Independent
An average €9.2bn shares a day were traded on Euronext Amsterdam and the Dutch arms of CBOE Europe and Turquoise in January, according to data from CBOE Europe first reported by the Financial Times.
EU-based financial firms are banned from trading in London because the EU has not recognised UK regulations on exchanges as equivalent to its own.
Read more at: Brexit: Amsterdam surpasses London as Europe’s leading share trading hub | The Independent
Thursday, June 6, 2019
The Netherlands - Amsterdam: The inventors of true Corporate Capitalism - To the postcapitalist city … via Amsterdam circa 1619 - by Paul Mason
Imagine yourself in Amsterdam exactly 400 years ago. What word would you use to describe the extraordinary economic and social system around you?
There are a stock exchange, a currency market and a central bank. The most important social institution is something called a ‘company’—not just any old company but the VOC (the Dutch East Indian Company), the most powerful in the world.
There are other clues. The trade fleet of the United Provinces is bigger than all the trade fleets of Europe combined. Amsterdam is the ‘bookshop of the world’. And this is a republic.
So what, using the language available to you as a citizen of the Dutch Republic, do you call this kind of society?
Today it’s obvious. This is the first flourishing of mercantile capitalism. And the transition had been under way for at least 100 years. While London possessed some of the working parts of the new system, only Amsterdam had all of them.
The English ambassador, Sir William Temple, summed up the puzzlement of the rest of the world: "They have no native commodities towards the building or rigging of the smallest vessel … for havens they have not any good upon their whole coast … nor has Holland grown rich by any native commodities, but by force of industry; by improvement and manufacture of all foreign growths; by being the general magazine of Europe, and furnishing all parts with whatever the market wants or invites …"
Read more at: To the postcapitalist city … via Amsterdam circa 1619 • Social Europe
Sunday, February 10, 2019
The Netherlands and Brexit: Netherlands wins Brexit spoils amid corporate relocation talks
Brexit is driving companies out of the UK, and the Netherlands is raking in the corporate refugees.
About 250 companies are in talks with the Netherlands Foreign Investment Agency to potentially relocate activities to the country, according to a statement published on Saturday. The candidates would join 42 companies that made the move last year, and the 18 early birds in 2017.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if the largest Brexit wave is yet to come,” Jeroen Nijland, who heads NFIA, said in a telephone interview. “It normally takes about six months to two years from the first conversation we have with a company before it makes a decision, and our pipeline is now bigger than in earlier years.”
The Netherlands has emerged as one of the winners in securing businesses that seek to leave the UK because of Brexit, vying with countries like Germany, France and Ireland. The country, which bagged the European Medicines Agency — an EU agency moving from London to Amsterdam — is initially luring corporate entities in the financial and media sectors, both of which require permits to operate in the bloc, Nijland said.
The growth of Amsterdam as a trading hub will boost the Dutch share of European equity trading to around a third from five% currently, the financial markets regulator AFM estimates. The watchdog also expects the country to capture nearly 90% of European bond trading.
The media industry is another area where the Netherlands has picked up wins. Discovery Inc said in January it’s applying for broadcast licenses in the Netherlands to ensure its pay-TV channels will continue to show across the European Union in the event of a no-deal Brexit when the UK leaves the bloc on March 29.
Read more: Netherlands wins Brexit spoils amid corporate relocation talks
About 250 companies are in talks with the Netherlands Foreign Investment Agency to potentially relocate activities to the country, according to a statement published on Saturday. The candidates would join 42 companies that made the move last year, and the 18 early birds in 2017.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if the largest Brexit wave is yet to come,” Jeroen Nijland, who heads NFIA, said in a telephone interview. “It normally takes about six months to two years from the first conversation we have with a company before it makes a decision, and our pipeline is now bigger than in earlier years.”
The Netherlands has emerged as one of the winners in securing businesses that seek to leave the UK because of Brexit, vying with countries like Germany, France and Ireland. The country, which bagged the European Medicines Agency — an EU agency moving from London to Amsterdam — is initially luring corporate entities in the financial and media sectors, both of which require permits to operate in the bloc, Nijland said.
The growth of Amsterdam as a trading hub will boost the Dutch share of European equity trading to around a third from five% currently, the financial markets regulator AFM estimates. The watchdog also expects the country to capture nearly 90% of European bond trading.
The media industry is another area where the Netherlands has picked up wins. Discovery Inc said in January it’s applying for broadcast licenses in the Netherlands to ensure its pay-TV channels will continue to show across the European Union in the event of a no-deal Brexit when the UK leaves the bloc on March 29.
Read more: Netherlands wins Brexit spoils amid corporate relocation talks
Sunday, October 28, 2018
The Netherlands: A tourist's guide to EU-funded Amsterdam - by Peter Teffer
As you approach the northern part of Amsterdam, you will see a large
white building, which some say looks like a frog. "The Eye" film
institute's new building, opened in 2012, cost around €38m. It received
€1.5m of EU funding from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).
The ERDF has distributed more cash in 'Amsterdam Noord' - an area which because of its watery separation from the rest of Amsterdam was for a long time seen as not truly belonging to the city.
But several big industrial players departed the waterfront, leaving it open for new development. Housing cooperative Open Haard received €2.7m to modernise an area of mostly abandoned company buildings.
According to Bart Bozelie the project – which also received €10m in private investment – has helped put the northern district on the map. "The ERDF subsidy definitively contributed to that," he told EUobserver in an emailed statement. He said that the project would have gone ahead anyway without the ERDF subsidy, but then it would have had "a lower ambition level".
During the current funding period (ie 2014-2020), Amsterdam's Noord district is also benefiting from a €33m co-financing to develop economic activity in a city park.
The money will be used to renovate pavilions and two former gas stations. One former gas station, recently painted yellow, was already defaced with graffiti. The building is now used for neighbourhood activities like yoga, and as one passer-by told EUobserver, bicycle classes.
Biking is of course quintessentially Dutch, and you can also do it on EU-funded bike paths.
Read more: A tourist's guide to EU-funded Amsterdam
The ERDF has distributed more cash in 'Amsterdam Noord' - an area which because of its watery separation from the rest of Amsterdam was for a long time seen as not truly belonging to the city.
But several big industrial players departed the waterfront, leaving it open for new development. Housing cooperative Open Haard received €2.7m to modernise an area of mostly abandoned company buildings.
According to Bart Bozelie the project – which also received €10m in private investment – has helped put the northern district on the map. "The ERDF subsidy definitively contributed to that," he told EUobserver in an emailed statement. He said that the project would have gone ahead anyway without the ERDF subsidy, but then it would have had "a lower ambition level".
During the current funding period (ie 2014-2020), Amsterdam's Noord district is also benefiting from a €33m co-financing to develop economic activity in a city park.
The money will be used to renovate pavilions and two former gas stations. One former gas station, recently painted yellow, was already defaced with graffiti. The building is now used for neighbourhood activities like yoga, and as one passer-by told EUobserver, bicycle classes.
Biking is of course quintessentially Dutch, and you can also do it on EU-funded bike paths.
Read more: A tourist's guide to EU-funded Amsterdam
Wednesday, February 22, 2017
EU Medicine Agency: Crowded race to win EU medicines agency- by Aleksandra Eriksson
The London-based European Medicine Agency (EMA) will need a new home
after Brexit, and almost a dozen European cities are already vying over
the regulatory gem.
Today, almost all new or innovative medicines are submitted to EMA for assessment, which evaluates whether they are safe to put on the EU market. The agency comes with almost 900 expert workers, paid for by the EU; comprehensive research networks; and a €300 million a year budget.
Acting as a host for EMA is a boon for a country's life science sector, but also benefits the hospitality sector: some 400 people fly in to the agency each day.
Amsterdam, Athens, Barcelona, Copenhagen, Dublin, Lisbon, Milan and Stockholm have already declared willing to be the next host of the EMA, but more candidates are mulling their bids. Sources say that at least 20 member states are considering throwing their hat into the ring.
As much things related to Brexit, the race will be uncharted waters. There is no fixed procedure for how to elect the next headquarters; the new seat must only be chosen by unanimity in the Council, where EU member states are represented, which doesn't make the task easier.
"We are expecting the process to get mired in basic, competitive instincts," said one EU diplomat working on her country's EMA bid.
So far, cities are entering the contest as a beauty pageant, touting themselves as pro-European, cosmopolitan, with good food, and better weather than London. All also stress their vibrant pharmaceuticals industries.
Amsterdam puffs up its "outstanding international connections".
Read more: Crowded race to win EU medicines agency
Today, almost all new or innovative medicines are submitted to EMA for assessment, which evaluates whether they are safe to put on the EU market. The agency comes with almost 900 expert workers, paid for by the EU; comprehensive research networks; and a €300 million a year budget.
Acting as a host for EMA is a boon for a country's life science sector, but also benefits the hospitality sector: some 400 people fly in to the agency each day.
Amsterdam, Athens, Barcelona, Copenhagen, Dublin, Lisbon, Milan and Stockholm have already declared willing to be the next host of the EMA, but more candidates are mulling their bids. Sources say that at least 20 member states are considering throwing their hat into the ring.
As much things related to Brexit, the race will be uncharted waters. There is no fixed procedure for how to elect the next headquarters; the new seat must only be chosen by unanimity in the Council, where EU member states are represented, which doesn't make the task easier.
"We are expecting the process to get mired in basic, competitive instincts," said one EU diplomat working on her country's EMA bid.
So far, cities are entering the contest as a beauty pageant, touting themselves as pro-European, cosmopolitan, with good food, and better weather than London. All also stress their vibrant pharmaceuticals industries.
Amsterdam puffs up its "outstanding international connections".
Read more: Crowded race to win EU medicines agency
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