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
Belgium in the Eurovision Song Contest 1968 regional juries, it is unclear whether individual jury votes were announced on screen during the show, or if a full ranking of the songs was released; currently only the top two placings are known. On the night of the final Lombard performed 3rd in the running order, following the Netherlands and preceding Austria. At the close of the voting "Quand tu reviendras" had received 8 points (3 from Italy and 1 apiece from Finland, France, Luxembourg, Portugal and the United Kingdom), placing Belgium joint 7th (with Monaco and Yugoslavia) of the 17 participating countries. The Belgian jury awarded 6 of