Netherlands

The royal account is maintained by the Rijksvoorlichtingsdienst, the government information service. Other Twitter accounts are @mentioned 49 times, out of which 13 were retweets about events Royal Family members attended (i.a. Prime Minister Rutte @MinPres and Minister of Finance De Jager @JCdeJager). The queen has never tweeted herself and the account has never sent a single @reply. The tweets are mainly official announcements about upcoming events members of the Royal Family attend. The most retweeted tweet is the Queen declaring herself “speechless” after the rampage of a gunman in a shopping mall, which left 6 people dead in Alphen aan den Rijn on 9 April 2011.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte has an institutional account also maintained by the Rijksvoorlichtingsdienst, the government information service. The account has well over 100,000 followers including the @EU_Commission, Herman van Rompuy @euHvR, Portuguese President @prCavacoSilva, but is not following anyone, not even the Dutch Royal family @KHtweets. By ignoring his peers the Dutch Premier is cutting himself out of the conversation on Twitter. According to the account’s description, “every message will be read but not (instantly) responded to. For questions to the PM, go to our website”. Although the account has never sent a single @reply, Mark Rutte does answer the most asked questions in a weekly video. The tweets sent by the Prime Minister’s office are mainly official announcements about upcoming press conferences, his daily schedule and government decisions. The Prime Minister tweets mainly in Dutch but retweets English language tweets by Herman van Rompuy @euHvR, @EUCouncilTVNews, @EUCouncilPress and even French tweets by the @Elysee palace. The tweet about the resignation of his Cabinet in late April 2012 was the most retweeted tweet: 335 times.