Use and necessity of the Dutch Senate - Main contents

According to Wytze van der Woude i, professor Public Law at the Maastricht University, the competences of the Dutch Senate do not match its current function. A good functioning authority needs a logical relation between function, composition and competence. The Senate is officially one of the two Dutch legislators, but at the moment it only has some controlling competences. The other speakers, Thom de Graaf i (senator Democratic Party), Adri Duivesteijn i (senator Labour Party) and Tom Jan Meeus (political journalist for the Dutch paper NRC Handelsblad) agreed on the statement that changes are necessary, but they disagreed on the competences the Senate should have in the future.

Max van Weezel was the moderator of the debate which took place on October 2 2013 in The Hague.

This event was held in Dutch.

For more information on this event, please consult the Dutch version of this page by clicking on 'Nederlands' in the right upper corner of this page.