I've also personally witnessed that the Dutch tend so speak a much, much better English than the rest of Europe. I'm saying this as a French, who is generally a people who don't speak other languages very well. I believe this is because in the Netherlands almost no English program is dubbed, so people develop a good skill for the language. Since I travel across all of Europe, I've noted that countries that usually dub the English program (Germany, France, Spain, Italy) tend to have a lower English level than the countries who don't (Portugal, Netherlands, Nordics,
I'm all for preserving languages with a strong literary background (I'm mostly familiar with France's, obviously, but I do believe it's known worldwide thanks to people like Victor Hugo, Balzac or other great authors), but when it makes those people basically speak only their native tongue it's a little sad.
"Beware of programmers carrying screwdrivers." -- Chip Salzenberg