David van Weel, Dutch Minister of Justice: Preparing for disaster
The Interview
BBC
4.3 • 537 Ratings
🗓️ 8 April 2025
⏱️ 23 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
BBC foreign correspondent in the Netherlands, Anna Holligan, speaks to David Van Weel, the Dutch justice minister as he calls on citizens to prepare a 72-hour emergency kit - to enable people to be self-sufficient for three days in case of a disaster.
The kits should include enough food and water to survive for 72 hours - in case of war and other catastrophes. It's part of a European-wide strategy as geopolitical uncertainty spreads globally.
He tells us the nature of the risks and where they’re coming from and whether Europe should still feel reassured about NATO defence. The Interview brings you conversations with people shaping our world, from all over the world. The best interviews from the BBC. You can listen on the BBC World Service, Mondays and Wednesdays at 0700 GMT. Or you can listen to The Interview as a podcast, out twice a week on BBC Sounds, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Presenter: Anna Holligan Producer: Clare Williamson Editor: Sam Bonham Get in touch with us on email TheInterview@bbc.co.uk and use the hashtag #TheInterviewBBC on social media.
Image: David van Weel (Credit: Patrick van Katwijk/Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, I'm Anna Holligan, the BBC's correspondent in The Hague, and this is the interview from the BBC World Service, the best conversations coming out of the BBC, people shaping our world from all over the world. |
| 0:13.5 | I will come back to Russia. I will participate in the elections. |
| 0:18.7 | There's an increase in violence according to the coca crop. |
| 0:22.7 | There is no place in the world where women are equal. I will give away the vast majority of my money. |
| 0:27.8 | It's my full-time focus for the rest of my life. |
| 0:32.3 | For this interview, I'm in the Hague to meet David Van Wiel, the Dutch Minister of Justice. Across Europe, |
| 0:39.4 | people are being urged to stockpile enough food, water and other essential items that will allow |
| 0:44.3 | them to survive on their own for 72 hours. This is part of a broader strategy to prepare for |
| 0:50.3 | potential disasters. Large areas of the Netherlands lie below sea level, the country's |
| 0:56.0 | witnessed natural disasters, extreme weather exacerbated by climate change, and even in recent |
| 1:01.3 | weeks, power cuts. The current national alert level is four, which means the risk of a terror |
| 1:07.1 | attack is substantial. But the renewed focus on readiness also reflects a growing uncertainty. |
| 1:14.8 | Increasing resilience takes time. It's not only about saving yourselves for 72 hours. It's also |
| 1:20.4 | about on a local government level, how do you prepare yourself? Is our infrastructure fit enough? |
| 1:25.7 | Is our energy supply resilient enough? And those are |
| 1:29.9 | big questions that take time to answer. So I think we need to hurry. At the same time, |
| 1:35.2 | what I say, it's not acute. We are not at risk of being invaded tomorrow. |
| 1:40.7 | This isn't just about engineering fear for political purposes to justify a push to |
| 1:45.9 | increase military defence spending. There has been a strategic shift similar to the Cold War era |
| 1:53.2 | towards peace through strength. There is growing unease about Europe's reliance on transatlantic alliances |
| 2:01.6 | and the unpredictability of US support under the new administration, |
| 2:06.1 | which has made many in Europe feel it might be in a situation where it's left to stand alone. |
... |
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