Incoming Dutch government plans to introduce compulsory viewings of Rembrandt masterpiece and visits to parliament

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

Viewings of Rembrandt’s masterpiece The Night Watch and visiting parliament at least once will be compulsory under plans for schoolchildren to be brought in by the new Dutch government, according to local media reports.

The incoming government also aims to introduce lessons about the Dutch national anthem, called the Wilhelmus, including the meaning of the text and the origins of the melody.

The latest proposals, reported by the popular daily tabloid De Telegraaf, come as efforts in the Netherlands to cobble together a four-party coalition after the March elections drag on, weighed down by the search for tough compromises.

However, the plans for schoolchildren were presented as one area on which the parties could agree.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Dutch prime minister, Mark Rutte, arrives at the parliament in The Hague for a meeting with leaders of CDA, CU and D66 parties about forming a new coalition. Photograph: STR/EPA

“Schools must take pupils at least once during their school years to visit parliament’s lower house and the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam,” home to Rembrandt’s painting, De Telegraaf said.

“The four parties forming the coalition – the VVD, CDA, D66 and the Christian Union – have reached an agreement on this,” the paper said, quoting insider sources.

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The plans form part of a growing debate in the small lowlands country of about 17 million people about what the centre-right Christian CDA party refers to as “Dutch norms and values” and “Dutch identity”.

A strong proponent of such ideas, CDA’s leader, Sybrand Buma, has even lobbied for the singing of the Wilhelmus to be compulsory in Dutch schools, but that is unlikely to happen, local newspapers reported last month.

The negotiations for the next government are likely to continue past 9 October and beat the 208-day record set in 1977, political experts said this week.

The VVD party, led by the prime minister, Mark Rutte, won 33 seats in the 150-seat lower house of parliament in the elections on 15 March. But Rutte is now seeking to knit together a four-way coalition to give his government a slender one-seat majority.