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
Southern Netherlands until 1867. The King of the Netherlands was Grand Duke of Luxembourg until 1890, when William III was succeeded by his daughter, Wilhelmina of the Netherlands – but Luxembourg still followed the Salic law at the time, which forbade a woman to rule in her own right, so the union of the Dutch and Luxembourger crowns then ended. The northwestern two-thirds of the original Luxembourg remains a province of Belgium. The Spanish Netherlands (Dutch: "Spaanse Nederlanden", Spanish: "Países Bajos españoles") was a portion of the Low Countries controlled by Spain from 1556 to 1714, inherited from the Dukes of Burgundy.