An old video of the Netherlands PM mopping floor is being shared as an incident that happened during the G-20 Summit - FACTLY
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
September 12, 2023
A video of the Netherlands Prime Minister Mark Rutte in which he accidentally drops a coffee cup on a lobby floor is being shared on social media. Further in the video, he can be seen mopping the floor to clean up the mess. It is claimed that this incident happened during this year’s G-20 summit in India. Let’s fact-check this claim through this article.
Claim: A video of Netherlands PM Mark Rutte mopping a floor after he spilled coffee during this year’s G-20 summit in New Delhi.
Fact: In 2018, the Dutch PM spilled his coffee when he entered the country’s parliament building. He then picked a mop and cleaned the floor. Back then, this incident was filmed and shared online. It has no relation to the G-20 summit held in India in 2023. Hence, the claim made in the post is Misleading.
We performed a keyword search on the internet to learn more about the viral clip. This search led us to multiple news reports (here, here, and here) that contained the same visuals. According to these reports from 2018, the Dutch PM Mark Rutte “ was walking into the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport building in The Hague on Monday when he dropped coffee. In a bid to clean up his mess, the head of a major European government reached for a mop — and started swiping at the spill.”
Reportedly, the video clip of this incident went viral on social media back then, and netizens praised him for this act.
Meanwhile, the G-20 summit, which was hosted by India this year, concluded on 10 September 2023. The Netherlands PM Mark Rutte has attended this event. On 11 September 2023, he met the Deputy Chief Minister of Karnataka in Bengaluru.
To sum up, a video of the Duch PM mopping a floor is being falsely linked to this year’s G-20 summit in New Delhi.