“They mock him and call him the leader of the miser club in Europe,” French newspaper La Croix described in an article published by Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, as the 55-year-old bachelor still lives in a modest apartment. and cycling on her way to work with an old Finnish brand mobile phone (Nokia) from before the advent of touchscreen smartphones.
Under a law passed two years ago, the head of government is already required to record messages in the government archive to make them available if requested by a member of parliament. Realizing that his phone did not have enough memory to store so many messages, Rutte regularly erased old messages in order to receive new ones. The newspaper quotes the newspaper de Volkskrant daily, which reports that this is how 41 text messages related to the epidemic were recorded in the entire year, from the end of June 2020 to the end of June last year.
She notes that last week Rutte was forced to buy a new smartphone, but it was too late because the issue of Nokiagate was supposed to be the subject of debate in Parliament. The newspaper continues by pointing out that far-right leader Geert Wilders has criticized the use of “the phone’s low storage capacity” as a justification, calling it bullshit, and also denounced what he called the political Bermuda Triangle, where all things disappear in unjustified ways.
And Wilders wasn’t the only one to condemn: politician and former MP Peter Omzegt, who played a role in exposing the controversy, complained that the prime minister was undermining the foundations of democracy, and Green Party leader Jesse Claver lamented the continued uncertainty. despite promises of change ahead of his re-election for a fourth term.
The newspaper indicated that Rutte expressed his goodwill and denied any attempts to deliberately cover up information, as he fired back, denouncing some parliamentarians with “incredulity, a deep feeling that things are fraudulent”, and expressed his annoyance at the attacks on him. , and added: “If there is no trust, I can do something else.” And this won’t be the first time he’s made good on his threat. In January 2021, Rutte effectively resigned following the publication of a parliamentary tax administration investigation that accused him of imposing unfair taxes on nearly 26,000 families for child benefit fraud. and two months later he was re-elected President of Ministers, the newspaper writes.
