This bit from that RTL article is somewhat laughable:
Antropoloog Rik Roelfzema denkt dat er nog meer achter zit. We zijn volgens hem niet chauvinistisch, zoals de Italianen of Spanjaarden wel zijn. "In Spanje en Italië word je gewoon in de originele taal toegesproken en verder niks. Dat is de arrogantie van de cultuur."
In Nederland heerst een ander sentiment. "In onze cultuur zetten we onze eigenheid niet voorop", vervolgt de antropoloog. "Wij zijn een soort kameleon en wij nemen eigenschappen van de ander over. Het gebruiken van Engels is een manier om een connectie te maken."
It says a lot about how the Dutch want to see themselves compared to how they really are, and to claim
"In onze cultuur zetten we onze eigenheid niet voorop" is completely absurd and contrary to even the casual Dutch self-observation concerning the Dutch trait of
'onverschilligheid'. Addressing e.g. an Arab or an African or a Russian in English is hardly inclusive or helpful. Who is to say the African isn't primarily a French speaker aside from whatever other language they speak? And since French is an official EU language they'd be well within their right to speak it. Moreover the person may well be trying very hard to actually speak Dutch.
Is it 'chauvinistic' and 'arrogant' for Spaniards and Italians to speak Spanish or Italian in Spain or Italy? That's a ridiculous conclusion. Also this notion that all people in NL switch to English isn't entirely true, it matters who the person is and what the context is. There's a joke that went around here that if you go into a French bar and ask 'does anyone here speak English?' Someone will eventually, grudgingly say: 'Maybe, but we're not going to'. Yet if you go into a bar here and say 'does anyone speak English?' 3/4 of the clientele run at you shouting 'me, me, ME!'
Turn up at the gemeentehuis or a shop with a complaint however and you'll be forced to speak Dutch. Quite a lot of people will just speak Dutch to you and some will even say, half serious, '
spreek Nederlands man!' Especially if they started speaking English, but the replies start getting a bit more complicated than high-school/Netflix achievement level, the common reply is:
'jij kan Engels blijven praten als je wilt, maar ik ga terug naar het Nederlands...' As we know production is harder than listening.
For a certain portion of the population it's entirely to do with a self-perception of national English fluency. Contrary to what Roelfzema claims, the view here is to get things done quickly and there is a good deal of impatience with both resident natives and strangers. More than once 've seen the absurd spectacle of a Nederlander addressing another Nederlander in English because the person didn't immediately reply or had a non-standard accent.
Since I've never believed the argument of 'people are just trying to help', whenever I used to get spoken to in English (and it still happens on occasion) I just repeat in Dutch that I can't understand it. Implying that the English is too incomprehensible. Sometimes it is, but I want to give people a rare bit of pain which often isn't forthcoming in these situations, otherwise they'll carry on doing it to everyone. Luckily I have an adequate enough level of Dutch which allows me to take up that challenge should someone say: but can you actually speak it better than I do English?