Last month the House of Representatives spoke to Minister Kajsa Ollongren of the Interior about student houses and the fate of foreign students. Some cities have a dire shortage of lodgings and foreign students are an easy prey for rack-renters.

One problem is that foreign students do not know how things work here and have no idea how high their rents can be really. Can we not translate the website of the rent assessment committee into English, D66 MP Jessica van Eijs recently asked her fellow party member Ollongren.

The latter responded cautiously. You cannot translate everything into English, she said. In the administration of justice that is not done either. Perhaps students should use the services of an interpreter.

Interpreter

PvdA MP Henk Nijboer found this rather odd. He himself already had some trouble finding information on the website of the rent assessment committee. Imagine being a Chinese student. “So then you need to ask an interpreter to say: my rent is eighty euros too much. Surely that is not a serious proposal? How much trouble would it be to have that site translated into English?”

Despite the objections voiced by the Minister, D66, GroenLinks, PvdA, VVD and ChristenUnie jointly called for a motion last Thursday to “make the essential elements of the website of the rent assessment committee available in English”.

Ollongren grumbled no longer, for these parties jointly have a majority. She called the motion “useful to ensure that foreign students can sufficiently familiarize themselves with the possibilities that are available to them”.