Lots of impressions for Roelof Dilling from Grolloo and Frouwkje Vennik from Gasselternijveen. They were the two people from Drenthe who were allowed to take a seat as citizens in the Royal Theater in The Hague and look back on a unique day for them.
“Very special to experience. Very nice to see all those famous people up close,” says Frouwkje Vennik. She and her husband left for The Hague by public transport and were ready early. “It’s quite an experience to see everything in person. I look at it very differently now.”
On Monday, when she looked ahead to Budget Day, Vennik called everything surrounding the Speech from the Throne a ‘charade’. And Roelof Dilling didn’t really care for it either. He didn’t need all that ‘fuss’ about it, he said earlier this week, referring to all the frills that come with the third Tuesday in September.
But after a day among the hats in The Hague, he changes his mind. “I think it was a beautiful ceremony,” he says afterwards. “If the government presents an annual plan once a year, then that is a great moment in a democratic Netherlands. It was colorful and just fun to be there together. I think that should be embraced.”
Dilling had acquaintances living in The Hague, so he did not have to leave Grolloo early. When he reported to the Senate in the morning, he was welcomed by the chairman with a cup of coffee and cake. Before the walk to the Royal Theater was discussed, among other things, the declining confidence in politics.
After the Speech from the Throne, Dilling and Vennik were allowed to sit in the front row of the balcony, the Drenthe people walked back to the Senate. They bumped into, among others, the Drenthe King’s Commissioner Jetta Klijnsma. “We spoke to him briefly, said hello,” says Vennik.
Dilling listened attentively to the Speech from the Throne. “They were all great plans, which probably no one is against. At the same time, I wondered whether all these plans are feasible. I am curious next year, at the next Budget Day, to see what has come of it. That is no fault of the cabinet, because I understand that it is difficult to keep all the balls in the air.”