How Covid-19 poured cold water on Netherlands’ EU romance
Dutch opposition to recovery spending has overtones of British disillusionment
Isolated in a recent European Union council of ministers, with attitudes described by European leaders past and present as “repugnant”.
It sounds like an old script of Britain in the EU. Yet it is the Netherlands that has found itself at the heart of the union’s most bitter row during the coronavirus pandemic. As EU leaders meet on Thursday for their fourth virtual crisis summit in seven weeks, the Dutch will once again be in the vanguard of opposition to plans for big spending on the recovery.
British parallels only go so far. The Netherlands is a founding member of the European club and single currency, and does three-quarters of its trade with the EU. A year ago the prime minister, Mark Rutte, gave a sweeping vision of a savvier, more realpolitik-positioned EU in the world. Surveying “the chaos of Brexit”, Rutte said, “there is no such thing as splendid isolation”. Dutch Eurosceptic parties have quietly shelved visions of “Nexit”.
And yet Dutch political scientist Catherine De Vries sees echoes of the British debate. The Dutch political class, which she notes like to describe their country as “the Netherlands Inc” have a transactional attitude to Europe. The Dutch have benefited tremendously from “the tree of European integration”, she observes. “Now that we have been able to reap the fruits of those developments, we are questioning whether we need the tree anymore or do we actually need to water the tree?
“If Dutch politicians don’t explain for a very long time how the Dutch economy benefits from the single market, it’s very difficult to explain why the Dutch should pay for the single market … That reminds me very much of the British discussions.”
The Dutch are hardly alone in keeping a flinty eye on EU spending. With Austria, Denmark and Sweden, the Dutch make up “the frugal four” that helped sink a deal on the next EU budget in February. But no other leader seems to cause as much irritation as Rutte, who arrived at the summit with a biography of Frédéric Chopin to get through that night, because “what else is there to do”. The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, was said to have been irked by Rutte’s “childish” behaviour, the Dutch daily Volkskrant reported.
Rem Korteweg, a senior research fellow at the Clingendael Institute in The Hague, blames “shambolic PR” by the powerful Dutch finance ministry and “poor diplomacy” for the current Dutch EU woes. Exhibit A is the Dutch finance minister, Wopke Hoekstra, who voiced contrition after remarks questioning why some countries lacked financial buffers to cope with the coronavirus shock provoked a furious reaction.
Korteweg thinks the Dutch also failed to see which way the Germans were leaning in a recent debate on crisis rescue plans, leaving them isolated at a Eurozone finance ministers’ meeting. “On economic and financial issues the Netherlands always likes to be Robin to Germany’s Batman,” he said. But it also suits Germany to have the Dutch “play the bad guy”, he added. “Germany having the Dutch on their outer right-hand flank allows Germany to play a more central and more mediating role.”
Dutch author Joris Luyendijk points to political games ahead of next year’s elections. “One reason the Dutch are so loud is that Hoekstra is positioning himself to succeed Rutte as the Dutch prime minister and for that he needs to look tough. This is very British: playing domestic politics in Brussels.”
However, there are deeper reasons for the cooling romance between Dutch political elites and Brussels. The Dutch, one of the largest small member states, have lost weight since enlargement to eastern Europe. Disaffection was evident in the resounding Dutch no to the EU constitution in 2005, which De Vries sees as opening the way to the more “transactional discourse” about the EU in domestic politics. “That was then exploited by the extreme right,” she says, who fanned claims about “‘an EU superstate and wasteful bureaucracy’.”
Now the Netherlands is coming under pressure from France, Spain and Italy to pledge “solidarity”, code for more spending, either via shared debt, or massive grants to help the worst-hit countries. In an interview with the Financial Times, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, effectively pinned responsibility for the EU’s fate on Germany and the Netherlands agreeing “financial transfers and solidarity”. Anything less would fuel populism in Italy, Spain and perhaps France, the French president argued.
It is an argument that cuts little ice in the Dutch parliament, where Rutte’s government has no majority in either chamber. Earlier this month seven lawmakers tabled a resolution against “debt union”, led by Pieter Omtzigt, an influential voice in the Christian Democratic Appeal party that is part of Rutte’s coalition. Asked if any Dutch government would agree mutualised debt, Omtizgt responded simply: “No.”
Dutch government sources, in common with German ones, think others fail to appreciate big offers already made in the white heat of the crisis, from tearing up EU stability and growth pact rules, to the European Central Bank’s €750bn bond-buying programme and a €540bn rescue package.
As other incumbent leaders across the world, Rutte is enjoying a surge in the polls, while his rivals in the far-right Freedom party and populist Forum for Democracy have been sinking. But politics is volatile. “A move towards eurobonds in March of next year would be a windfall for Forum for Democracy,” suggests Korteweg. “They would want nothing less than that Rutte is forced to sign up to a form of eurobonds and then cash in at the ballot box in March.”
Luyendijk adds: “Macron is half-right because, yes, refusing mutualised debt will fuel populism in the south. But by adopting mutualised debt you are going to fuel populism in the north. Dutch train drivers work till 65 while their French colleagues can retire in their late or even early 50s. Where is the solidarity in that?” But never say never, he says. “Bluntness bordering on boorishness is quintessentially Dutch but so is, in this country of coalitions, flexibility and flip-flopping.”
