Only in the last few days I have started to notice some promotional activities going on here in the Netherlands. I was trying hard to see any official European Parliament posters on the streets in Amsterdam, but haven’t managed so far no matter how hard do I keep looking for them. I even tried to check online if I can find where are they located, but didn’t manage! 
Either my work and home are in the completely wrong parts of Amsterdam (although I’m working in the centre) or there is not really a lot of promotion going on…
However, I was more luckier in The Hague and Utrecht - and just by accident.
Next to Den Haag Centraal Station I finally saw the famous chicken! 
I still think that it’s not the best place where it should be to get the maximum attention, but it’s better than nothing.
And this weekend in Utrecht there was even more promotion going on (maybe it’s because th
e last weekend before the elections).
At first in one of the main squares (next to the church tower) one could get information about the elections in general. Considering the fact that they were giving the souvenirs with official EE09 logos, I concluded that this activity must be organised by European Parliament information office in the Netherlands. Some politicans were also on the stage, giving their thoughts and opinions about different issues.
Afterwards, when I was sitting on the canal side and drinking an ice tea, in 30min time I noticed two boats passing by - one of them was D66 boat with a Minister of Finances inside, the other one was Labour Party, both of them having a lot of fun in the boat and stopping to give people flyers about their parties. Didn’t manage to take any pictures, sorry!
And that’s not all - in one of the streets there were some more promotional stands, but I couldn’t understand what were they about - probably some political parties again… If some Dutch is reading it, please, feel free to give us extra information!
(8 votes, average: 4.13 out of 5)
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The signals I’m picking up in the Netherlands are very diverse.
There has been almost no official EP-campaigning in the Netherlands. I spotted one poster weeks ago in Amsterdam, but it was gone after a couple of days and where I live in Maastricht I have seen none at all.
However, especially the last two weeks, the political parties themselves have become very active and are flooding the country with events and leaflets. ‘Surprisingly’ even the party leaders have engaged themselves in the debates. Although I was cynical at the start, the media seems to have really picked up on the topic and has at least tried to raise a lot of awareness to the elections by devoting a lot of attention to debates and interviews with the Dutch candidates. However, remarkably, televisions broadcasts containing information about Europe was usually appreciated very low by the viewers. TV-shows reportedly lost 200.000-300.000 viewers whenever Europe was discussed.
Regardless of Europe’s lack of entertainment value, one of the latest polls showed that about 2/3 of the Dutch electorate intends to cast its vote this week. A spectacularly high number. A poll just before that reported that Geert Wilders’ nationalist-conservative party would possibly win the elections. Now I am wondering how this relates to the projected high voter turn-out:
-did Wilders mobilize a lot of people to vote?
or
-did the fact that this highly controversial party would win the elections mobilize a lot of people to cast their vote against him?
The famous chickens!
They must be genetically modified organisms to have grown so big.
Do people in the Netherlands generally know there is an election coming up?
Josef, I think that not more than in other countries… One can see some ads on the streets from different political parties (but yes, no official ones as stated before), but in the everyday’s life at least I don’t hear people talking abt it a lot.
Maybe Mats or other Dutchies have more info and opinions
Probably more than in Italy!
What I’m gathering from my surroundings: people would like to vote, but are not sure who to vote for since it is not clear to them what they are actually voting about.
Lately, I’m being asked for voting advice quite frequently.
However, it would suprise me if the turn-out would really turn out to be around 67%.
What sort of MEPs are the parties fielding in the Netherlands? Are they celebrities? Or relatively unknown?
Most of the year, MEPs seem to keep a very low profile. How are people supposed to vote for MEPs they don’t know?
Not that I’m suggesting more celebrity MEPs!
But it would be nice if MEPs had higher profiles.
I want the moon on a stick, I know.
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