Greenhouses safe dining rooms for free-willed Dutch

Senay Boztas

AN INTIMATE dinner on the waterside, by flickering candlelight, isn’t a dream in the Netherlands, even though restaurants are currently shut: Amsterdam-based arts centre Mediamatic wants to use greenhouses as coronasafe private dining spaces and its first proposed dates are booked out already.

It’s just one example of innovative thinking in a country where 17.4million people have been asked to respect an “intelligent lockdown” since the middle of March.

Museums, schools and most hospitality venues are shut and large events are banned but bicycles are on the streets, dog owners take frequent walks, and many shops stayed open.

And the country’s entrepreneurial spirit hasn’t been dampened. “Like everyone else, we are insecure; the government tells you to close shop and everything is in the balance,” said Willem Velthoven, founding director of Mediamatic. “A main theme for our art centre is working with sustainability and the greenhouses were already there, so we said let’s see if we can use them for hospitality.”

Mathijs Bouwman, an economist, categorises the Dutch approach as between light-touch Sweden and heavy-handed Spain, aiming to preserve something of the prosperous precoronavirus economy and respect the Dutch dislike of unbendable rules.

“We expect people to act with some common sense: you don’t need a permit to go outside to the bakery, as in Paris,” he said. “The main reason not to close things down is economics, and the second is that we know that the Dutch are not really capable of following rules unless they intrinsically feel themselves that the rules make sense.”

With coronavirus tests severely limited, the RIVM, the government’s public health institute admits that deaths are likely to be higher than the latest official count of 5,056.

After the first sunny weekend saw crowded beaches and parks, Mark Rutte, the prime minister, announced a ban on adult groups of more than three, with €390 (£346) fines.

However, official death curves are flattening. The RIVM believes the vital R-value measure of further infections per case has been suppressed below one, and Mr Rutte has announced that primary schools will reopen on May 11.

Many businesses have praised local government for being open to innovation during this period as well as offering company bailouts and a €10billion (£8.9billion) salary support scheme.