History of the Netherlands The post-war years saw rapid economic recovery (helped by the American Marshall Plan), followed by the introduction of a welfare state during an era of peace and prosperity. The Netherlands formed a new economic alliance with Belgium and Luxembourg, the Benelux, and all three became founding members of the European Union and NATO. In recent decades, the Dutch economy has been closely linked to that of Germany, and is highly prosperous. The four countries adopted the Euro on 1 January 2002, along with eight other EU member states. The prehistory of the area that is now the Netherlands was largely
Carnival in the Netherlands The Rhenish carnaval in the Netherlands is a derivative of the Cologne carnaval. The Burgundian carnaval originated from the traditional eating feasts during which people would ridicule one another during the carnaval in the Southern Netherlands (nowadays Belgium, Luxembourg and the Dutch Provinces North Brabant and Limburg), especially in the Duchy of Brabant. Carnaval is not only a feast of eating and drinking, but also serves as social role reversal feast which allows people to behave outside the usual acceptable social norm. People will dress up as a character, much as seen during the eve of the Christian feast of