Old Video of Netherlands PM Cleaning After Spilling Drink Linked to G20 Summit
The video of Netherlands PM Rutte cleaning the floor after spilling coffee is from 2018 and not recent.
Fact-Check | The video dates back to 2018 and is being falsely linked it to G20 summit.
(Photo: Altered by The Quint)
A video which shows Netherlands Prime Minister Mark Rutte spilling a drink and then mopping the floor is being shared on the internet as a recent incident from the recently-concluded G20 summit, held in New Delhi.
What have users said?: Social media users shared the video with a caption that said, "It happened in G-20 summit New Delhi 2023, the PM of Netherland had a tea cup in his hand, fell by mistake. He didn't call volunteers to cleanup. Please see what happened next. This is a lesson to our nation political people (sic)."
An archive of the post can be found here.
We received multiple queries about the viral video on our WhatsApp tipline. You can view archives of similar claims here, here, here, and here.
Are these claims true?: No, the video dates back to 2018 and is unrelated to the recent G20 summit.
The video shows Netherlands PM Rutte spilling his drink in a lobby of the Dutch Parliament building.
How did we find that out?: We performed a keyword search with words such as "Netherland PM spills coffee" and found a shorter but similar version of the video uploaded on The Quint's official YouTube channel.
The video was titled "Watch: Netherlands PM Mark Rutte Clean Up after Himself" and was uploaded on 7 June 2018.
Its description said, "Prime Minister of The Netherlands Mark Rutte spilt coffee in a lobby of Dutch Parliament building."
Further, we came across the same video as the viral one uploaded on the verified YouTube channel of EuroNews.
It was uploaded on 5 June 2018 and its description carried a link to a report about the incident.
The report said that PM Rutte was praised for mopping the floor to clear up his coffee spill. PM Rutte accidently spilled his drink while he was passing through security barriers at the Dutch parliament.
The report further said that the gesture was applauded by cleaning personnel.
News reports: A report published in NPORadio1 — a radio channel in Netherlands — carried a visual from the viral video and said that PM Rutte believes he did nothing special when he mopped the floor.
In an extensive interview, PM Rutte said, "I thought I would go down in history with my views on climate policy and taxes, but I may now end up as a celebrity for cleaning up my own coffee."
The report was published on 21 June 2018.
Conclusion: It is evident that a five-year-old video of Netherlands PM Rutte mopping the floor after spilling his coffee is being falsely linked to G20 summit in New Delhi.
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