House of Representatives news

The live streaming of meetings at www.tweedekamer.nl has been updated. This makes it easier for you to follow the meetings of the House of Representatives on your computer or mobile device.

On 5 and 6 November, the Eerste Kamer and Tweede Kamer (the Dutch Senate and House of Representatives) host a ECPRD seminar titled “The practicalities, advantages and disadvantages of unicameral and bicameral parliamentary systems”.

The Temporary Committee on a Broad Definition of Welfare investigates the way GDP is measured and explores measures of welfare in a broad sense.

On Friday 16 October a special joint meeting took place in the Hall of Knights. On that that day it was exactly 200 years since both chambers held a joint meeting in The Hague for the first time.

As of October 2015 you can go on several special guided tours of the premises of the House of Representatives, which are given in celebration of the 200th anniversary of the House. Until the end of January 2016 you can join these guided tours, which have three different themes. Make sure to book on time, because the number of places on the tours is limited.

On 1 september 2015 Ms (Renata) Voss was sworn in as Secretary General of the House of Representatives of the Netherlands. Since 1 July 2015 she had been in office as succeeding Secretary General.

The summer recess of 2015 has come to an end. The first meeting of the House was on Tuesday 1 September, when the new Secretary General, mrs. Renata Voss, was sworn in.

On Friday 5 and Saturday 6 June 2015 members of the standing committee on Defense paid a visit to Dutch military personnel in the Middle East. The MPs gathered information about the Dutch contribution to the fight against the Islamic State (IS).

On Monday 18 May 2015 the Parliamentary Committee of Inquiry into Fyra started a series of public hearings. The committee carries out an inquiry into what went wrong with the high speed train Fyra.

The President of the Senate, Ms Ankie Broekers-Knol and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Ms Anouchka van Miltenburg, have signed a cooperation agreement with the presidents of the parliaments of Slovakia and Malta, on Monday 20 April 2015 at the Chamber of Deputies of the Italian parliament in Rome.

On 31 March 2015 Mr Reinier van Zutphen was officially sworn in as the new National Ombudsman in the plenary sitting of the House of Representatives.

The European summit which will take place on Thursday 19 and Friday 20 March includes such topics as the negotiations on the free trade agreement between the European Union and the United States of America (TTIP). In preparation of the summit the House of Representatives had a debate with the Cabinet about the Dutch position. This debate took place on Monday 16 March in the Plenary Hall.

On Monday 16 March, MP Ard van der Steur (VVD) will visit Brussels to explain the House of Representatives' objections to the establishment of a European Public Prosecutor's Office.

On Wednesday 14 January 2015 the House of Representatives had a debate with the Cabinet about the Paris terrorist attacks and the consequences thereof for the Netherlands.

National parliaments have gradually increased their influence on Europe. Many parliaments actively use the tools provided by the Lisbon Treaty.