Senate
Sign in to saveAlso known as First Chamber of the States General, Senate of the Netherlands
upper house of the Netherlands
Key facts
- Type
- Upper house
- President
- Mei Li Vos , GL/PvdA , since 7 October 2025
- First vice president
- Boris Dittrich , D66 , since 14 October 2025
- Second vice president
- Hendrik-Jan Talsma , CU , since 14 October 2025
- Political groups
- Government ( Jetten cabinet ) (22) VVD (9) D66 (7) CDA (6) Opposition (53) GL–PvdA (14) BBB (11) PVV (4) SP (3) CU (3) FvD (3) JA21 (2) SGP (2) Volt (2) 50PLUS (1) OPNL (1) PvdD (1) Independents (6)
- Length of term
- 4 years
- Voting system
- Indirect party-list proportional
- Last election
- 30 May 2023
- Next election
- May 2027
via Wikipedia infobox
Research organization · ROR
- Type
- Government
- Founded
- 1815
- Location
- The Hague, The Netherlands
- Status
- Active
GRID grid.465164.4 · ISNI 0000 0004 0621 2610
~9 min read
Encyclopedic overview
The Senate (Dutch: Eerste Kamer der Staten-Generaal [ˈeːrstə ˈkaːmər dɛr ˈstaːtə(ŋ) ɣeːnəˈraːl], literally "First Chamber of the States General", or simply Eerste Kamer [ˈeːrstə ˈkaːmər] ; sometimes Senaat [səˈnaːt] ) is the upper house of the States General, the legislature of the Netherlands. Its 75 members are elected on lists by the members of the twelve provincial councils and four electoral colleges for the Senate every four years, within three months of the provincial elections. All provinces and colleges have different electoral weight depending on their population.
Members of the Senate tend to be veteran or part-time politicians at the national level, often having other roles. They receive an allowance which is about a quarter of the salary of the members of the lower house. Unlike the politically more significant House of Representatives, it meets only once a week.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Senate” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.