Obtaining a visa

Obtaining a visa for me as a Dutch citizen is usually not a problem. I can either buy them at the airports where I arrive or at one of the embassies in The Hague or Brussels. The only requirement is that you pay. That is of course if I need a visa at all, as for most country I luckily don’t have to have one. On the other hand: it looks nice in my passport, so the more the better! For foreign nationals coming to The Netherlands it is a big problem obtaining one. They need a paid ticket already, state that you have enough funds to survive and pay for your expenses in NL, your friends or relatives in NL are being checked, if you are invited by someone they need an income of at least 1200€, you have to make an appointment way in advance to even be able to submit your documents and you have to (relatively) pay a lot to get the visa.
Now I am trying to get a friend from Eastern Europe to The Netherlands and I went to city hall to obtain an invitation letter. I thought that they would ask me a lot of questions and needed to see some documents, but I only had to show my ID, pay 11€ and I got a blank authorized invitation letter! Easy as that. Now I only hope that the embassy doesn’t ask for a contract that I make 1200€/month or pay slips of the last 3 months, as then we would have a problem…