"to the formation of government and he does not actively interfere in daily decision-making. The ministers together form the Council of Ministers. This executive council initiates laws and policy. It meets every Friday in the Trêveszaal at the Binnenhof. While most of the ministers head government ministries, since 1939 it has been permissible to appoint ministers without portfolio. The Prime Minister of the Netherlands presides over the cabinet and is the major political figure of the Dutch government. Some of the best-ranked Prime Ministers of the Netherlands include: The Dutch Parliament, officially known as the States General of the Netherlands,"
"of Parliament in the world still in use. Little is known about the origin of the Binnenhof. Presumably, the grounds next to the Hofvijver lake, and the small homestead on it, were purchased by Count Floris IV of Holland from Meiland van Wassenaar in November 1229. Between 1230 and 1234 he had the homestead expanded to a small keep. After Floris' son and successor William II was crowned King of the Romans in 1248, this construction continued. Between 1248 and 1280, William had the Ridderzaal built. To its left and right, walls were built, which divided the area in front"
"Ridderzaal The Ridderzaal (; ) is the main building of the 13th century Binnenhof in The Hague, Netherlands. It is used for the state opening of Parliament on Prinsjesdag, when the Dutch monarch drives to Parliament in the Golden Coach and delivers the speech from the throne. It is also used for official royal receptions, and interparliamentary conferences. In the 13th century Floris IV, Count of Holland bought a piece of land next to a small lake to build a house on. The Ridderzaal, the manorial hall of Floris V, grandson of Floris IV, was built on this estate in"
"remain independent of the cabinet. The term 'monism' is used to refer to a stance that important decisions should be prepared by the people of the governing coalition in order to promote political stability. States General of the Netherlands The States General of the Netherlands () is the bicameral legislature of the Netherlands consisting of the Senate () and the House of Representatives (). Both chambers meet at the Binnenhof in The Hague. The States General originated in the 15th century as an assembly of all the provincial states of the Burgundian Netherlands. In 1579, during the Dutch Revolt, the"
"PVV, SP and D66 from the Netherlands and VB from Belgium are not part of any faction. Dutch politician André Postema is the President of the Benelux Parliament for the period 2017–2018. The seat of the Benelux Parliament rotates among the cities of Brussels, The Hague and Luxembourg. Each of these cities hosts the plenary meetings of the Benelux Parliament for two consecutive years. The Benelux Parliament met in Luxembourg in 2013 and 2014, in Brussels in 2015 and 2016, and meets in The Hague in 2017 and 2018. The Secretariat of the Benelux Parliament is located in Brussels. Benelux"
"has magnificent stained glass windows depicting the coats of arms of Dutch towns; particularly fine is the rose window with the arms of the principal noble families of the Netherlands. The heavy timber roof structure with its has the appearance of an upturned ship. Wooden heads symbolizing eavesdroppers from the higher powers are supposed to deter members of the assembly from lying. The throne in the Ridderzaal was designed by Pierre Cuypers. Ridderzaal The Ridderzaal (; ) is the main building of the 13th century Binnenhof in The Hague, Netherlands. It is used for the state opening of Parliament on"
"States General of the Netherlands The States General of the Netherlands () is the bicameral legislature of the Netherlands consisting of the Senate () and the House of Representatives (). Both chambers meet at the Binnenhof in The Hague. The States General originated in the 15th century as an assembly of all the provincial states of the Burgundian Netherlands. In 1579, during the Dutch Revolt, the States General split as the northern provinces openly rebelled against Philip II, and the northern States General replaced Philip II as the supreme authority of the Dutch Republic in 1581. The States General were"
"Abgeordnetenhaus of Berlin The Abgeordnetenhaus of Berlin (House of Representatives) () is the state parliament (""Landtag"") of Berlin, Germany according to the city-state's constitution. In 1993 the parliament moved from Rathaus Schöneberg to its present house on Niederkirchnerstraße in Mitte, which until 1934 was the seat of the Prussian Landtag. The current president of the parliament is Ralf Wieland (SPD). The Abgeordnetenhaus was established by the new constitution of West Berlin in 1951. It replaced the former city legislature called ""Stadtverordnetenversammlung"" (city deputies assembly), established by the Prussian Reforms in 1808 and re-established by Allied-initiated state elections of 1946. Between"
"Heritage Label. The redesigned permanent exhibition on the Potsdam Conference was reopened in April 2012. Cecilienhof Cecilienhof Palace () is a palace in Potsdam, Brandenburg, Germany built from 1914 to 1917 in the layout of an English Tudor manor house. Cecilienhof was the last palace built by the House of Hohenzollern that ruled the Kingdom of Prussia and the German Empire until the end of World War I. It is famous for having been the location of the Potsdam Conference in 1945, in which the leaders of the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and the United States made important decisions"
"by the CDA in 1986 and 1989. Between 1891 and 1897, the Liberal Union was the last party to have an absolute majority of seats in the House of Representatives. All Dutch cabinets since then have been coalitions of two or more parties. The buildings that house the individual offices of the Members of the House of Representatives and conference rooms for closed-door party meetings are all located on the Binnenhof. The main buildings of the old Ministry of Justice and Ministry of Colonial Affairs are used as accommodations. Until 1956, there were 100 seats. This was expanded to 150"
"the same time, over 100 years later. Between these, the twice-destroyed Konzerthaus now seats 1,850. Because Berlin is an independent city-state within Germany, Berlin has its own parliament at the state level. Berlin's Prussian parliament building, now housing the House of Representatives of Berlin, is located in Friedrichstadt, along Niederkirchnerstraße. The building has been in use since 1899, when the ""Prussian House of Commons"" used it. The neighbourhood is also host to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, a large and sometimes controversial monument located one block south of the Brandenburg Gate. It is located in the northwest"
"and Democrats (S&D). The last union-wide elections were the 2014 elections. The European Parliament has three places of work – Brussels (Belgium), the city of Luxembourg (Luxembourg) and Strasbourg (France). Luxembourg is home to the administrative offices (the ""General Secretariat""). Meetings of the whole Parliament (""plenary sessions"") take place in Strasbourg and in Brussels. Committee meetings are held in Brussels. The Parliament, like the other institutions, was not designed in its current form when it first met on 10 September 1952. One of the oldest common institutions, it began as the ""Common Assembly"" of the European Coal and Steel Community"
"Hall""), still intact, is the most prominent. It is still used for political events, such as the annual speech from the throne by the Dutch monarch. From the 13th century onward, the counts of Holland used The Hague as their administrative center and residence when in Holland. The village that originated around the Binnenhof was first mentioned as ""Die Haghe"" in a charter dating from 1242. It became the primary residence of the Counts of Holland in 1358, and thus became the seat of many government institutions. This status allowed the village to grow; by the Late Middle Ages, it"
"Cecilienhof Cecilienhof Palace () is a palace in Potsdam, Brandenburg, Germany built from 1914 to 1917 in the layout of an English Tudor manor house. Cecilienhof was the last palace built by the House of Hohenzollern that ruled the Kingdom of Prussia and the German Empire until the end of World War I. It is famous for having been the location of the Potsdam Conference in 1945, in which the leaders of the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and the United States made important decisions affecting the shape of post World War II Europe and Asia. Cecilienhof has been part"
"consists of a House of Representatives (""Tweede Kamer"") and a Senate (""Eerste Kamer""). Both chambers are housed in the Binnenhof of The Hague and discuss proposed legislation and review of the actions of the cabinet. Only the House of Representatives has the right to propose or amend legislation while the Senate discusses its value regarding the Dutch law since the Netherlands have no constitutional court. Members of the House are elected directly every four years with a list proportional representation. Representatives are chosen on personal title, so in the relatively rare case that a member no longer agrees with his"
"Representatives and Senate was held there a year later. It stands near the site of the former palace of the Dukes of Brabant, which was destroyed by fire in 1731, and has itself been badly damaged by fire, in 1820 and 1883. Belgian Federal Parliament The Belgian Federal Parliament is the bicameral parliament of Belgium. It consists of the Chamber of Representatives (Dutch: , , ) and the Senate (Dutch: , , ). It sits in the Palace of the Nation (, , ). The Chamber of Representatives is the primary legislative body; the Senate functions only as a meeting"
"Landtag of Brandenburg The Landtag of Brandenburg (Brandenburg State Parliament) is the unicameral legislature of the state of Brandenburg in Germany. It has 88 Members of Parliament. The Landtag of Brandenburg was established in 1946 and abolished in 1952. It was re-established in 1990. The seat of the Parliament is the reconstructed Potsdam City Palace since early 2014. Its former seat was the Military School building on the Brauhausberg, Potsdam, which dates from 1902. Elections to the Landtag use a hybrid system whereby the 44 electoral districts return 1 member each in first-past-the-post votes, and 44 seats are elected by"
"time and the FDP returned following a recovery in voter support. The consideration and passing of legislation is the most important task, including the government budget. In addition, the parliament chooses the Governing Mayor of Berlin, and checks the city's government, the Senate of Berlin. Abgeordnetenhaus of Berlin The Abgeordnetenhaus of Berlin (House of Representatives) () is the state parliament (""Landtag"") of Berlin, Germany according to the city-state's constitution. In 1993 the parliament moved from Rathaus Schöneberg to its present house on Niederkirchnerstraße in Mitte, which until 1934 was the seat of the Prussian Landtag. The current president of the"
"found in the name of the Reichstag building, which since 1999 has housed the German federal parliament, the Bundestag. The decision not to rename the Reichstag building was taken only after long debate in the Bundestag; even then, it is described officially as """" (Reichstag, seat of the Bundestag). As seen in this example, the term ""Bund"" (federation) has replaced ""Reich"" in the names of various state institutions such as the army (""Bundeswehr""). The term ""Reichstag"" also remains in use in the German language as the term for the parliaments of some foreign monarchies, such as Sweden's Riksdag and Japan's"
"fountain adorns the courtyard and a statue of King William II, one of few Dutch equestrian statues, guards its gate, the Stadtholder's Gate, which dates from 1620. Looking out over the Hofvijver, the Senate sits in a chamber in the western corner of the Binnenhof, while the House of Representatives originally sat in the southern corner, at the other side of the Stadtholder's Gate. Today, the lower house meets in a chamber in the large modern eastern part of the complex. The Prime Minister's office has since 1982 been located in the small tower in the northern corner, simply called"
"Het Plein Het Plein (; English: The Square) is a town square in the old city centre of The Hague in the Netherlands. It is located adjacent to the Binnenhof, the meeting place of the States General of the Netherlands; the entrance to the House of Representatives can be found on Plein 2. The Mauritshuis art museum is located on Plein 29. Het Plein was originally a garden, forming a part of the Binnenhof castle, residence of the Counts of Holland. It was used to grow vegetables for the court. The garden was surrounded by a ring of canals and"
"since 1894 in the building that is today known as ""Reichstagsgebäude"". After 1949, the Bundesrat gathered in the ""Bundeshaus"" in Bonn, along with the Bundestag, at least most of the time. It had a wing of the Bundeshaus especially erected for the Bundesrat. In 2000 the Bundesrat moved to Berlin, just as the Bundestag one year before. The Berlin seat of the Bundesrat is the former Prussian House of Lords. The Bundesrat wing in Bonn is still used as a second seat. For the Federal Diet of 1815, the basic law (Bundesakte) established two different formations. In the Plenary, for"
"result, nearly all Belgian governments since the end of World War I have been coalitions between two or more parties or party families. Current party standings, as of May 2014: 1978–1981 1981–1985 1985–1987 1987–1991 1991–1995 1995–1999 1999–2003 2003–2007 2007–2010 2010–2014 2014–present Chamber of Representatives (Belgium) The Chamber of Representatives (Dutch: , , ) is one of the two chambers in the bicameral Federal Parliament of Belgium, the other being the Senate. It is considered to be the ""lower house"" of the Federal Parliament. Article 62 of the Belgian Constitution fixes the number of seats in the Chamber of Representatives at"
"House of Representatives (Netherlands) The House of Representatives (, pronounced ; commonly referred to as the ', literally Second Chamber) is the lower house of the bicameral parliament of the Netherlands, the States General, the other one being the Senate. It has 150 seats which are filled through elections using a party-list proportional representation. It sits in the Binnenhof in The Hague. Although this body is called the ""House of Representatives"" in English, this is not a direct translation of its Dutch name, the ""Second Chamber"" or more colloquially just the ""Chamber"". Rather than ""representatives"" (""afgevaardigden""), members of the House"
"Huis ten Bosch palace Huis ten Bosch (, ; English: ""House in the Woods palace"") is a royal palace in The Hague in the Netherlands. It is one of three official residences of the Dutch Royal Family; the two others are the Noordeinde Palace in The Hague and the Royal Palace in Amsterdam. Huis ten Bosch was the home of former Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands from 1981 to 2014; the current King Willem-Alexander and his family have announced plans to move into the palace in the near future. A replica of the palace was built in Sasebo, Japan, in"
"Espace Léopold The Espace Léopold (French, commonly used in English) or (Dutch) is the complex of parliament buildings in Brussels (Belgium) housing the European Parliament, a legislative chamber of the European Union. It consists of a number of buildings, primarily the oldest, the Paul-Henri Spaak building, which houses the debating chamber and the President's offices, and the Altiero Spinelli building which is the largest. The buildings are located in the European quarter in the east of Brussels, with building starting in 1989. The complex is not the official seat of Parliament, which is the Immeuble Louise Weiss in Strasbourg, France,"
"Palace of the Republic, Berlin The Palace of the Republic () in East Berlin was the seat of the parliament of the German Democratic Republic (also known as East Germany), the Volkskammer (People's Chamber), and also served various cultural purposes. Located between Schlossplatz and the Lustgarten (referred to jointly as Marx-Engels-Platz from 1951 to 1994) on an island in the River Spree, it also housed two large auditoria, art galleries, a theatre, 13 restaurants, a bowling alley, a post office, and a discothèque. On 23 August 1990, the Volkskammer ratified the treaty on German reunification, which was later also confirmed"
"the Netherlands (the Dutch Parliament) meets for a ceremonial joint session in Amsterdam. The ceremony traditionally takes place at the Nieuwe Kerk on Dam Square, immediately after the former monarch has signed the act of abdication at the nearby Royal Palace of Amsterdam. Normally, however, the Parliament sits in The Hague, the city which has historically been the seat of the Dutch government, the Dutch monarchy, and the Dutch supreme court. Foreign embassies are also located in The Hague. The coat of arms of Amsterdam is composed of several historical elements. First and centre are three St Andrew's crosses, aligned"
"Belgian Federal Parliament The Belgian Federal Parliament is the bicameral parliament of Belgium. It consists of the Chamber of Representatives (Dutch: , , ) and the Senate (Dutch: , , ). It sits in the Palace of the Nation (, , ). The Chamber of Representatives is the primary legislative body; the Senate functions only as a meeting place of the federal communities and regions. The Constitution does not mention the Federal Parliament as such; it stipulates that the federal legislative power is exercised by the King and the Chamber of Representatives (and exceptionally the Senate), and defines when the"
"King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands and Queen Máxima of the Netherlands live in Huis ten Bosch in the Haagse Bos, and work in the Noordeinde Palace in the city centre. Moreover, there are two former royal palaces in The Hague. The Kneuterdijk Palace, built in 1716, is now home to the Council of State of the Netherlands, and the Lange Voorhout Palace is now occupied by the Escher Museum, dedicated to Dutch graphical artist M. C. Escher. The Hague has its share of museums, most notably the Mauritshuis, located next to the Binnenhof, which exhibits many paintings by Dutch masters,"
"lords (high secular nobility), the knighthood (low secular nobility) and the status of the princely towns and markets. In other words, the peasantry in particular, i.e. the majority of the population, were not represented. In 1513, a building was purchased in what is now Herrengasse in Vienna, the so-called Palais Niederösterreich, where the state parliament met until 1997. The great power of the estates in the 16th century was pushed back more and more in the age of absolutism, but the state parliament was never abolished. Its last meeting in its old form took place on 13 March 1848 -"
"year, at the opening of the parliamentary year, when the king gives his Speech from the Throne on Prince's Day. On special occasions, such as when a States Generate vote on a marriage of a member of the royal house, an inauguration of the monarch, or the death of a member of the royal house, both houses also meet in a joint session (), with the President of the Senate presiding. They take place in the Ridderzaal (Hall of Knights) in the Binnenhof, except for the inauguration of the monarch, which occurs in the Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam. The rest"
"Reichstag building The Reichstag ( ; officially: ""Deutscher Bundestag - Plenarbereich Reichstagsgebäude"" ) is a historic edifice in Berlin, Germany, constructed to house the Imperial Diet (German: ""Reichstag"") of the German Empire. It was opened in 1894 and housed the Diet until 1933, when it was severely damaged after being set on fire. After World War II, the building fell into disuse; the parliament of the German Democratic Republic (the Volkskammer) met in the Palast der Republik in East Berlin, while the parliament of the Federal Republic of Germany (the Bundestag) met in the Bundeshaus in Bonn. The ruined building"