A Belgian politics professor in Brussels, Herman Matthijs, has done the amazing public service of calculating a league table of the costs of the royal families across Europe. Top of the pile are the Windsors (no surprises there), coming in at 48.6 million Euro a year. The Dutch Oranjes are a respectable second on 39.64 million. After that it declines rapidly, with the Luxembourg royals bringing up the rear with a paltry 8.76 million.

But Matthijs – who is also an expert on the role of the Belgian Secret Service - is honest about the problems for this kind of research. The top two families from the UK and the Netherlands are also the countries with the two most transparent systems for tracking down this kind of information. The Spanish, on the other hand, come out with a figure of only 8.9 million, when it seems that this figure represents no more than the King’s pocket money. It is difficult to trace what the total costs are exactly for things such as security, state visits, or palace maintencance, these items falling under various budgets spread across the government – or deliberately buried under other headings. Matthijs points out for instance that former Finance Minister Gerrit Zalm made sure that some of the Dutch monarchy’s costs no longer showed up in the book-keeping, to avoid awkward questions. This is probably the reason for them slipping down the table to number two behind the Brits. So the Dutch might be behind on points, but their goal difference is way ahead.

Former NATO Secretary General was interviewed this evening on Radio 1, during which he gave a fascinating round-trip view of the state of global politics. Foremost in his view was the fact that the Netherlands can only exert influence in world affairs via strong, effective institutions, with NATO and the EU at the front. Europeans should never take US interest for granted – Obama has said, according to De Hoop Scheffer, ‘I am also a Pacific President’. Avoiding any contradiction, De Hoop Scheffer stated that ‘I am an Atlanticist but I am also very European’  – there is no tension in this vision, it is a community of common interests. On the issue of the Davids report, he stated that he would respond when the time was right, but that at the moment he would draw two lessons: That the US should not act without allies, and that Europe will achieve nothing if it is divided. He denied that the Netherlands simply followed what the US wanted, and emphasised that in the future the Dutch must increasingly develop good relations with the rising powers of the world – the so-called BRIC block of Brazil Russia India China.

On Afghanistan, the final topic of his interview, he was crystal clear: It would send entirely the wrong message if a nation decides to pull out at this time. The US can only achieve the right goals if it works together with a broad coalition of nations from NATO and beyond. This is exactly the same position that De Hoop Scheffer held when he was NATO Secretary General, and there is no doubt that he had The Hague in mind when he said it now as before.

Tomorrow he will speak at a Christian Democrat party conference on the future of transatlantic relations. We will have to wait a little longer for his full reaction to the Davids report, but it will be worth it.

Addie Schulte continues from Thoughts on a Trial I:

The Netherlands and other European countries have introduced limits to freedom of expression, which are more severe than those in the United States. This has been influenced by the experience of the 1930s and the Second World War. Certain forms of speech are deemed to be so inflammatory that they cannot be allowed – they can literally form a danger to society.

Wilders is testing these limits. His words and actions demonstrate that he wants this arrangement to be brought under discussion again.

Wilders will stress that his opinions are permissible under the rights of freedom of expression. Whether this is so, is the most important question the judges have to answer. But to see Wilders as the champion of freedom of expression would be wrong. He and his party have frequently asked for the suppression of opinions that they themselves don’t appreciate. Someone who wants to ban the Koran and takes offense at works of art and satirical websites cannot be seen as an advocate of free speech.

At the first session of the trial he has made clear that he wants to use the trial to show that he is telling the truth. He wants the judges to conclude that what he says is right. A statement that is true, cannot be criminal, is his argument. That way he can make the content of his opinions the core of the case. But he’s taking a huge risk here. The judges could find that his statements are not the truth, for instance that the Koran and Mein Kampf are not the same book. Or they could argue that among more than one billion Muslims there are quite a few differing opinions and lifestyles.

Nevertheless, for the authorities the trial seems to be a lose-lose situation. If Wilders is convicted, he might gain politically. Critics at home and abroad will condemn the Netherlands. An acquittal might be seen as an excuse for vilifying Islam, and there might be an adverse reaction in Muslim circles. However, domestically the shock might be small. There is a certain numbness to Wilders, as a shock-rocker who has been trying to shock for too long.

A lot will depend on the handling of the public relations both during and after this affair. Leave that to Wilders.

 Addie Schulte is the principal columnist on political affairs with the daily newspaper Het Parool. He is a widely respected commentator on Dutch history and politics, particularly on the phenomenon of Pim Fortuyn’s impact on Dutch politics. His books include Daadkracht en Duidelijkheid: Vier Jaar crisis in de VVD [Leadership and Clarity: Four Years of Crisis in the VVD] (2007) and De Achterkamer: Het Drama van de PvdA 1998-2002 [The Backroom: The Drama of the PvdA] (2002). He runs a website at  www.boekenstrijd.nl

Thoughts on a Trial: I

There’s a tremendous amount of interest in the trial against Geert Wilders, both in the Netherlands and abroad.

That in itself is already noteworthy. It is certainly not the first time that a politician has gone on trial for his opinions. In the Netherlands the extreme right-wing politician Hans Janmaat was convicted. A smaller party on the same right-wing fringe was outlawed. Across the border in Belgium, Vlaams Blok was convicted for racism, and it then changed its name to Vlaams Belang.

However, this was all small stuff compared to the vibrations that the Wilders trial has caused.

The trial will definitely have an impact on the image of the Netherlands. The Dutch government has been afraid that the activities of Mr. Wilders would damage Dutch interests abroad, especially his movie Fitna. As a matter of fact, so far it hasn’t, although it has had an impact on the perceived threat level against the Netherlands and Dutch assets. More likely is that the trial will sustain the view that in the Netherlands political debate is more heated than in other parts of Europe. This strong impression has been given over the past eight years by the murders of Pim Fortuyn and Theo van Gogh and the turmoil surrounding Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

For Wilders’ supporters here and elsewhere the trial signifies Dutch or even European timidity and appeasement in the face of Islamic aggression. The view of ‘Eurabia’, a weak continent dominated by radical Muslims, is popular in certain political groups in the US. It feeds on older stereotypes of Europe as a soft power in decay, not able to stand up for its own interests. 

And then there is Wilders. In the words of the American neocon islam-critic Daniel Pipes, Wilders is not only the most important living European today, but he has the potential to become a world historical figure.

It is always interesting to see an American defining the needs of Europe.

He even states that Wilders ‘represents all Westerners who cherish their civilization.’ Surprisingly, Pipes himself disagrees with Wilders on Islam, because Pipes makes a distinction between Islam and Islamism. Wilders doesn’t. There is no moderation in Islam, Islam is Islam and that’s it, according to Wilders.

That puts him on a line with Mohammed Bouyeri, the murderer of Theo van Gogh. So it is no coincidence that Wilders wants Bouyeri as a witness at his trial. Bouyeri should tell the judge that Islam inspires or even demands the murder of critics of Islam.

But at the same time the appearance of Bouyeri would reveal the similar outlook of Bouyeri and Wilders. Both think Islam can only lead to one simple answer, and both – from different perspectives of course – link Islam with violence.

Thoughts on a Trial: II will continue tomorrow

Interesting analysis in the NRC this weekend on the pros and cons of a cabinet collapse in the Netherlands.  The Christian Democrats and the Labour party managed to patch up their differences over the Davids report, but they remain only temporary partners. The ChristDems would be thrown into a leadership battle should Balkenende, failing to hold together four cabinets for their full term, probably decide he’d had enough. And with no front-runner amongst their ranks, it would be quite a battle (something they are good at anyway due to the awkward past of the Protestant-Catholic merger). Maybe a cabinet crisis in the summer, blaming Labour (and Finance Minister Bos) for failing to act to balance the budget? 

For Labour its a clearer deal. So low in the polls, they have nothing to lose, and everything to gain with the possibility of the post-Balkenende ChristDems imploding. Bos, a fair user of media on the campaign trail, could then mobilise the left against a ‘slash the budget’ right-wing. But its an optimistic vision.

For the opposition, the impression is the faster the better with elections. But both the Liberals (VVD) and the Socialists could do with more time do they can profile themselves strongly against a Christ-Dem/Labour cabinet that is going to get stuck in compromises on public spending. And then there are the wild cards, D66 and Geert Wilders’ Party of Freedom. D66 has always been a political yo-yo that can benefit – as now – in times of uncertainty, but it remains to be seen if its anti-Wilders assault will be enough to sustain a longer campaign. And as for Wilders, being summoned into court for spreading hatred (against Muslims) will give him platforms in both courtroom and parliament from which to criticise the other parties, the cabinet, the state, just about anybody. Not surprisingly, he is the one most determined to hear the call for elections in the short term.

The next political battle-ground will be the local elections on 3 March. Wilders has directed all his attention to only two locations – The Hague and Almere - to consolidate his power and prevent control of his party getting out of his demagogic hands. The prospect of the World City of Law falling under the sway of the Wilders clan is something to watch. More on this on The Holland Bureau in the coming weeks.

Development aid has been a central plank of Dutch foreign policy since the 1960s, coming out of a mixture of social democrat and christian morality, the urge to act as a ‘model nation’ for others (gidsland), and post-colonial guilt.  Backed by a televised appeal, the Dutch population contributed 41 million Euro to disaster relief in Haiti (about two and a half Euro per person). Minister for Development Bert Koenders supported the action by doubling the result to 83 million.  To organise the distribution of this aid, a special public-private apparatus has been set to up make sure it reaches the correct destinations. Following the tsunami that hit Indonesia and the Indian Ocean countries in 2004, a similar appeal raised millions but ran into serious bottlenecks in getting the money to the right destination. But if any such doubts continued to exist, it didn’t stop many digging deep into their pockets another time.

This remarkable generosity comes at a time when Dutch development policy is under scrutiny. A major report released last week by the Scientific Council for Government Policy, entitled ‘Less Pretention, More  Ambition’, put ‘developmentalism’ under the loop, for more than 350 pages. Interesting is how the report recommends replacing the term ‘development cooperation’ – the assumption that donor and receiver are in a close relation, working towards the same ends – with the previously rejected, apparently demeaning ‘development assistance’. Cooperation, after all, makes it sound as if there is no intervention in the affairs of other countries, only a consensus around progressive values and goals. Time for a hard re-appraisal.

So determined have the Dutch been to ‘do something’ for those in need – as the Haiti appeal shows – that it has taken a long time for the raw pluses and minuses of development policy to break through some pretty strong taboes. But the time is ripe. The publication of Dambisa Moyo’s Dead Aid last year caused widespread reaction amongst the literati, and the Council’s report is a step closer towards influencing policy itself. The main point that needs to be taken in here is literally that the sheer act of giving is not necessarily the best solution for those receiving. it may make those doing the giving feel better about their place in the world and their connection with those in need, but it can also perpetuate hierarchies and inequalities that only benefit local elites. Aid can, and should, be used instead to lever good governance out of otherwise corrupt regimes, and it should be made temporary, linked to specific results. Aid should not be some kind of moral escape clause, enabling the developed lands to feel better about themselves and then turn their back.

The report recommends shifting the emphasis away from a national focus towards ‘global goods’ such as climate change and food production – North and South are going to be more than ever dependent on each other in the future, so all the more reason to highlight these goals in place of the usual stress on economic growth and GDP. The future is also based on the a greater targeting of aid in a smaller list of countries, and a broader awareness of the impact of far more decisive factors: trade relations, effective taxation, supple intellectual property rights, and a better tackling of migration. In contrast, three-quarters of Dutch aid is currently spent on improving education and health care.

This is a well-meaning approach, but as one commentator noted, the report remains very orthodox in its outlook. Around 500 national and international development experts were consulted, but the likes of Naomi Klein don’t make into this particular bibliography. Nevertheless, Koenders the moderniser hasn’t exactly embraced the call to arms provided by the Council. As one journalist put it, he received it about as enthusaistically as Balkenende received the Davids report. And that says a lot. But maybe he’s just being cautious in a time when political forces on the right are beginning to turn their demand for budget cuts in his direction.

The online journal The Broker is running a debate on the implications of the report and the aims of development in general, with contributions initially in Dutch but going international from February onwards.

Two years ago Defence Secretary Robert Gates expressed serious doubts as to whether some of the NATO allies were up to switching to a counter-insurgency (CI) approach. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Gates felt that Cold War mentality and tactical thinking still dominated too much. By pointing to the southern provinces in particular, it looked like Gates was directing his criticism at the nations that exactly were adapting their methods, in the regions with the worst security challenge: Britain, Canada, and the Netherlands. After complaints from the Dutch Minister of Defence and parliament, the US ambassador tried to diffuse the issue and Gates claimed he’d been talking about NATO as a whole.

It wasn’t a high point in Dutch-American relations, but the worst aspect was the timing – exactly at the beginning of the period when the Dutch needed to decide whether to extend their mission in Uruzgan. Now, early in 2010 when the Dutch are facing a similar (but this time more difficult) decision, reports are surfacing that display the same critique.

The Dutch forces have adopted the much-cited 3-D approach - Development, Diplomacy, and Defence – which has also been the outlook of the Canadians in Afghanistan. Instead of focusing on military power and traditional security, the aim has been to use the military as part of a broader development/humanitarian strategy to build up local-level governance and socio-economic infrastructure. On the whole this approach has been praised for both its long-term thinking and its immediate concern for local needs. One would imagine that this would fit the New Look  counter-insurgency strategy originally backed by President Obama in April 2009, developed by General McChrystal into a coherent plan in October, and now providing the basis for the Afghan-style surge in 2010. But it doesn’t seem to be so.

Reports from the ground in Uruzgan continue to identify major differences in opinion amongst US and Dutch forces. From the start, serious concerns existed over how the no-holds-barred tactics of Special Forces under Operation Enduring Freedom would undermine the impact of the softly softly 3-Ds. The Dutch inplemented strict guidelines to cover this, such as assurances over what would happen to prisoners, and parliament was mollified enough to let it go. It seems that the two operational mindsets are still looking past each other.

Dutch Foreign Minister Verhagen maintains a solidly Atlanticist stance, and The Hague provided the backdrop for the major Afghan donor conference in March 2009. But lower down the ranks and away from diplomatic back-slapping, parts of the US military continue to express disdain for the Dutch forces. “You need to win people over with power and money” is the American message, leading to payments for Uruzgan warlords like Mathiullah Khan. Khan provides local muscle and influence to protect military convoys in return for hard cash, and while the Dutch condone these payments it falls purely under the heading of desperate necessity. From a Dutch perspective, aimed at building confidence in effective and accountable forms of local governance, he is morally beyond the pale, whereas for the Americans its no more than a logical way forward. Likewise, bridge-building with tribal leaders by engaging in anthropoligical exercises of cross-cultural understanding doesn’t go down well with the hard-core terrorist-hunters. Camp Holland in Uruzgan currently has both a military commander and a diplomat, a two-headed command structure that emphasises a different understanding of military force. 

The difference between the criticism in 2008 and 2010 is striking. In 2008 Gates suggested that the US was way ahead in its tactics compared to its NATO allies, and it was therefore the other nations that were threatening the Afghan mission. Now its a case of US forces being dismissive of an ally exactly because they are operating strictly according to a CI manual. Obviously there are going to be differences of opinion at different levels of the military apparatus, but considering the weight that McCrystal is placing on the adoption of across-the-board counter-insurgency, the Dutch reports of American criticism are remarkable. They are all the more remarkable in the light of the damning report by intelligence chief Major General Michael Flynn released earlier this month, which fiercely criticised the failure of military intelligence units to do anything other than focus on the terrorist body-count. As a result they are ”ignorant of local economics and landowners, hazy about who the powerbrokers are and how they might be influenced, incurious about the correlations between various development projects and the levels of co-operation among villagers.” In other words – completely counter-productive for any realistic venture into CI.

We hear a lot these days from military pundits and media alike on the way troops are changing their combat tactics and the overall merits of CI as the only feasible means to cross the credibility gap that NATO forces are faced with in Afghanistan.  But as the Canadians know, “3D is simply easier on paper that it is in practice.” For McChrystal and the military leadership that believes in change it was always going to come down to two main challenges: How do you manage to rapidly shift the outlook of tens of thousands of troops who have been trained to identify and shoot the enemy, not embrace the unknown? And how do you manage this as head of a multinational force that is not reading from the same manual? One false step – one act of retaliation, normal in war but heavily counter-productive when the message is intended to be on building peace – can undermine the positive actions of everything else. NATO will probably end up defeating itself before the Taliban even get close.

Incident Retreived. DVD, Edited CCTV. 7 min.

No, not the CIA and Abstract Expressionism. An intriguing tale of collusion between an artist and an agency that is definitely more 21st century than Cold War.

In the Spring of 2004 the Dutch Intelligence and Security Service (AIVD) was preparing to move to larger  premises, the result of a recruitment drive following 9/11 and the fear of Islamic extremism.  Dutch law states that if government money is used for such an investment, a percentage of the total budget must be spent on an onsite artwork. The search for a suitable candidate to fulfil this task ended with the selection of American artist Jill Magid, whose recent work has been based around surveillance cameras and their presence in society. The Service naturally expected that the commission would lead to an artwork that could be placed conveniently in one or other hallway. Magid, intrigued by secrecy, power, and organisations, instead set out to become part of the Service itself. In early 2005 she presented her plan – she would become the Service’s Head of Personal Data, recording the personal details of its employees during clandestine meetings at locations of their choosing. Also intrigued, the Service agreed, so long as aliases were used and the ensuing report presented a positive image of its role in society.

Magid records this tale in her novel, Becoming Tarden, the result of her project, named after the main character in Kosinski’s Cockpit. Its written in a voyeuristic style and its obvious that Magid is playing seductress in the heart of the secret state, coming on strong with temptation and desire. The Dutch spooks – male and female – apparently fell for it. Only, they hadn’t reckoned on a novel. 

To close the assignment, Magid held an exhibition at the Article 12 gallery in The Hague in 2008 based on her investigations, and handed over her notebooks. The message came back that around a quarter of the content will be censored. Magid let drop that she can deal with this but that she will continue writing. Writing? The message has the desired effect. The order comes from on high that the exhibition is to be closed down, that she must stop writing, and certainly not publish anything. Non compliance would mean her computer hard drive being wiped and a probable visit to the inside of a court room. But she’s playing with them all the time. Called to account for overstepping the line, Magid uses the stand-off that occurs between legal advisors across a table to add spice to her book’s epilogue: ”This is business, Jill. This is not art.”

But they are sucked in completely now, part of a trip that they didn’t commission. They counter with a proposal – the book and the notebooks will be placed in a vitrine, in the Service’s building, as a permanent exhibit. A piece of sculpture. Magid is not sure. For once – on the final pages of the book – she seems wrong-footed. But the event she has been staging for the previous three years is not yet over. She hands over the book, and it is returned in August 2008, heavily redacted. But she still has the original. So she sets up a challenge – she will exhibit the only copy of the full, uncensored book under glass at Tate Modern in London. The exhibit was called Authority to Remove - if the Service was so determined to control the contents, they could come and collect it at the end of the exhibition.

Which they duly did, two weeks ago. But its a strange tale. In the name of Art, Magid could literally record eveything going on within the walls and the minds of the Dutch secret state, and then test the limits of disclosure. On first account it looks like the Service has been fully taken for a ride. But maybe it did come out with a better social image. The long-running suspicion that the CIA funded – through various cut-outs – the promotion of Abstract Expressionism is all based on the assumption of behind-the-scenes manoeuvering by East Coast elites. But maybe the best way to use art for cultural diplomacy is to become part of the art itself. Maybe the AIVD were on to something which they weren’t aware of. Magid certainly gave them some front-page headlines and a sexiness that counter-terrorism never will.

Chris Klep (Dept. of History of International Relations, Utrecht University) is an expert in the field of peace-keeping missions and parliamentary legitimacy since the end of the Cold War. In 2008 he published Somalie, Rwanda, Bosnie: De Nasleep van Drie Ontspoorde Vredesmissies (Somalia, Rwanda, Bosnia: The Consequences of Three Failed Peace Missions). Chris is responding here to ‘Reflections on Davids: I’, posted on 16 January.

Giles Scott-Smith’s assessment of the Davids report (below, January 16th) is perhaps somewhat more positive than mine. The ultimate question here is the role that the report plays and will play in the political aftermath of the Iraq-issue in the Netherlands. That is the report’s raison d’être. It is not easy to assess the final ‘use’ and importance of the report at this early stage. It is still early days.  Only this afternoon, the commission will be answering questions from Parliament, elaborating on the content and conclusions of the report.

First reactions to the thorough and authoritative report from the former highest judge in the Netherlands have generally been more or less positive. The report is indeed well written, accessible and at points exhaustive. A very useful addition to the body of literature on Iraq. But the report has also fallen victim to a turn of events that was easy to foresee: it has immediately  become political ammo, especially for Balkenende-bashing. Obviously, the Prime Minister should have refrained from his angry response just a few hours after the presentation. That only added fuel to the political theatre that ensued. Because theatre is what it basically was: the report was immediately reduced to two one-liners: ‘lacking Security Council mandate’ and ‘incompletely informing Parliament’! The debate on content was overtaken by a political catch-as-catch-can, no holds barred fight. Interestingly, anyone taking the trouble to read the report from front to back gets a more nuanced picture. In this respect, it will be interesting to see whether the commission – in this afternoon’s session and under pressure from Christian Democrat MP’s– will nuance its conclusions.

The approach of the commission to its research-mandate has been characteristic, at least for commissions of the independent type: highly ‘formalistic.’ That is, it tends to ‘measure’ political behavior against the benchmark of what politics and international law should be like. If you combine this with a commission heavily laden with legal experts, the result is a rather formal, and in places somewhat one-sided report. For instance, the report hardly deals with alternatives (i.e. the reality of a complex international context, something that historians and political scientists would undoubtedly have stressed more): an anti-US stance would automatically have brought us into the camp of Russia and China, whose blockage of a ‘final’ Security Council Resolution was hardly motivated by a deep love for international law! Should the Netherlands have followed the example of President Chirac’s France or Chancellor Schröder’s Germany? Both political leaders took a  stance in the Iraq-matter that was highly determined by domestic politics, even opportunism.  France and Germany: excellent choices in this dossier if you wanted to be assured of an unpredictable diplomatic future.

Was parliament really incompletely informed about American requests for military support, as can be read in the Davids report? Depends on how you look at it. Key here is the American aide-mémoire of November 15^th 2002. The cabinet informed parliament about the first half of the aide-mémoire, which dealt with non-offensive support (like Host Nation Support, especially logistics through the port of Rotterdam), but kept the second half to itself. This second half of the aide-mémoire contained the American suggestion to start discussions about possible offensive Dutch support (like F16 fighter-bombers) sometime in the future. In diplomatic practice, these types of requests through diplomatic channels are quite customary. However, they require a careful fingerspitzengefühl (for lack of a better word…) that could not have been expected from parliament, especially not in the charged political atmosphere at the time. The aide-mémoire would instantly have been bombarded to a more-or-less ‘official’ American request (or even direct pressure) to deliver offensive military support, some five months before the actual attack against Iraq. As a result the cabinet – and perhaps quite rightly so – refrained from informing parliament, a choice that can be defended. However, if you look at the aide-mémoire from a ‘formal’ angle, parliament was indeed incompletely informed. After all, if we stick to that angle, parliament has to be kept abreast of every single development and – in this case – every diplomatic exchange. If this ‘formality’ would indeed become the benchmark of foreign policy, the machine would soon grind to a halt. It is a government’s duty to govern (obviously without lying to parliament or misinforming it!), and parliament’s duty to check government. The Article 100-procedure, which requires government to inform parliament at the earliest possible moment about participation in international peace operations, only complicates this process. In effect it adds to the already dominant monistic character of what in essence should be a dualistic process: foreign policy making.

[http://weblogs.vpro.nl/villavpro/2009/09/22/het-vragenuur/]

The hearing on the Davids report by the parliament’s foreign affairs committee did not produce any new revelations or drama. The two main points of the report – that the parliament was not sufficiently informed by the government, and that the legal basis for war was lacking – were once again highlighted. Committee member Nico Schrijver: “The use of violence without a resolution from the Security Council is under certain circumstances possible, such as with self-defence or in the case of humanitarian intervention in serious situations, but in our opinion were these conditions not applicable in March 2003, and therefore the committee decided that a solid legal foundation was lacking.” When quizzed whether the Davids committee had access to all necessary information, the answer was a definite yes.

What was the parliamentary response? Not surprisingly, party politics is now kicking in stronger than ever as each party seeks to take what they can from the situation. The Christian Democrats disagree with the claim that parliament was not informed, and there are arguments in the report – based on strategic or security necessity – which support this. Marcel van Dam of the Labour party continued to question whether Davids had followed up all the leads on possible Dutch military involvement in the invasion. Femke Halsema of GroenLinks (GreenLeft) tried to persuade the committee that their negative judgement of the cabinet of 2003 also applied to the current cabinet, but Davids would have none of this.

This was the final salvo of the opening round on the Davids report. So far the Christian Democrats have just about held it together, the Labour party decided not to push it to the limit, and D 66, GroenLinks and the Socialists indulged in newsworthy political theatre. The next stage will probably be the official cabinet response to the report in early February, and that will potentially have great significance for observing how Davids will have an impact (if any) on longer-term trends in Dutch foreign policy.