The Netherlands: 911 Equivalent?
These different responses in part reflect Dutch commercial interests in Russia, such as Shell’s huge investments in Siberian oil fields, as Thomas Erdbrink reports in the New York Times. The Netherlands is also one of the world’s premiere hubs for shell companies created for tax avoidance, which Russians have made liberal use of. As the Dutch investigative website Follow The Money reports, these Dutch-registered Russian holding companies have made the Netherlands, on paper, the world’s second-largest investor in Russia.
.. But the different responses also reflect the two countries’ different instinctive attitudes to international aggression. The Netherlands, a small country caught between larger European powers, has learned to be conciliatory and diplomatic.