Dutchmen grounded

AT THE height of the Dutch golden age, merchants exported their goods and their families to colonies on four continents. Four centuries later their descendants are less impressed by such adventuring. A new law proposed by the Dutch government aims not only to limit dual nationality among immigrants (in 2011 around 20,000 people gained Dutch nationality through naturalisation) but also to make it easier for the authorities to strip members of the 850,000-plus Dutch diaspora of their nationality, should they secure a second citizenship abroad.

Guus Bosman, a Dutchman living in Washington, DC, calls the proposal “mean-spirited”. Eelco Keij, a Dutch citizen in New York and one of the loudest critics of his government's proposals, thinks that these days dual nationality is no more than “a harmless side-effect of globalisation”.