Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations

"BZK" redirects here. For the antispectic and cationic surfactant, see Benzalkonium chloride.

Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations

Ministerie van Binnenlandse Zaken en Koninkrijksrelaties
Coat of arms of the Netherlands
Former building of the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations
Department overview
Formed	March 12, 1798 (1798-03-12)
Jurisdiction	Kingdom of the Netherlands
Headquarters	Turfmarkt 147, The Hague, Netherlands
Employees	3,000
Annual budget	€4,0 billion (2013)
Ministers responsible	Ronald Plasterk, Minister of the Interior and Kingdom Relations Stef Blok, Minister for Housing and Civil service
Website	Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations

The Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations (Template:Lang-nl; BZK) is the Dutch Ministry responsible for Home Affairs, Civil service, Intelligence and the relations with the other countries in the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The Ministry was created in 1798 as the Department of internal police and monitor the state of dikes, roads and waters of the Batavian Republic and in 1876 became the Ministry of the Interior and had several name changes before it became the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations in 1998. The Ministry is headed by the Minister of the Interior and Kingdom Relations, currently Ronald Plasterk.

Responsibilities

The Ministry is called the "Mother of all Ministries" because most ministries, like the former Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality and Ministry of Education, Culture and Science split from the ministry at one time or another or the "residual ministry", because it is left with a diverse set of responsibilities after this process. It has the legal mission to:

• uphold the Constitution of the Netherlands;
• guarantee the democratic rule of law;
• ensure an effective and efficient public administration, including lower governments, the municipalities, provinces and Water boards;
• promote the quality of the Civil service and coordinate management and personnel policy for all civil servants;
• coordinate cooperation within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, namely with Aruba, Curaçao and Sint Maarten.

Because it shares so many responsibilities, and has twin buildings (both old and new) with the Ministry of Security and Justice, they are sometimes called the twin ministries.

Organization

The ministry is currently headed by one minister and one state secretary. It employs almost 3,000 civil servants. The ministry's main office is located in the centre of The Hague in the same building as the ministry of Justice. The civil service is headed by a secretary general and a vice-secretary general, who head a system of four directorates general:

• The Directorate General for Public Administration
• The Directorate General for Management and Personnel Policy
• The Directorate General for Constitutional Affairs and Kingdom Relations.

An important autonomous agency of the ministry is the General Intelligence and Security Service.

History

The ministry was founded in 1798 as the department for internal policy and supervision on the state of water works in Batavian Republic. Since 1801 it has been named Ministry of the Interior, and some other responsibilities have been added to its name: Agriculture (1922-1932) and Kingdom Relations (1998-date). Between 1959 and 1998 a minister was given the portfolio of relations with Surinam, the Dutch Antilles and Aruba in addition to his other portfolios before that, there was a minister of Colonial Affairs, which was called Overseas Affairs after 1945.

See also

• List of Ministers of the Interior of the Netherlands

External links

• Template:Nl Ministerie van Binnenlandse Zaken en Koninkrijksrelaties (Rijksoverheid)