[Thanks to Tangent Reality]

Knowing where political parties obtain their money is a fairly essential aspect of democracy. Transparency for financial transactions prevents parties from becoming trojan horses for hidden interests able to pay for political influence.

On Wednesday and Thursday this week the parliament discussed a proposal for a new law that would require parties to declare any donation of above 1000 Euro in their annual report, and any donation above 4500 Euro must be listed with the name of the donator. Failure to do so would mean a fine of 25,000 Euro. The consequences for Wilders’ PVV would be considerable if this went through, because the party has from day one wanted to avoid any insight into its financial affairs.

To receive state funding like the other political parties, the Freedom party would need party members, and it only has two: Wilders himself, and the Friends of the PVV foundation. In this way Wilders sticks by his aim to avoid any connection with the Dutch state. He also avoids any annual financial reports. And he maintains complete control over everything. But to do so, he needs to haul his money from somewhere else. And as everyone knows, much of it comes from abroad – right-wingers in the US, and probably Israel. There have been plenty of reports on this, some of which were compiled here on the Bureau in June 2010.

“The proposal for a law on the financial support for political parties has a long history, too long in the opinion of my party.” So spoke Tofik Dibi of GreenLeft in the debate yesterday, and his view coincided with the PvdA, who also want to ban all donations that come from abroad (nice twist too - the Communist party was villified for getting money from Moscow, so whats the difference with a party getting money from the crazy US Right?). But the show was stolen by the Freedom Party’s Hero Brinkman, who held forth against this ‘anti-PVV law’ and against a wave of critique from all the other parties for around an hour. Brinkman, who is known as the ‘democrat’ within the PVV for various efforts to develop a more open party structure, used a string of interesting arguments in response:

1) The proposed law originated as a move by former Interior Minister Guusje ter Horst to demand transparency from Pim Fortuyn’s LPF back in 2002. Once the LPF declined in numbers and was less of a threat, the law was shelved. Now that the PVV has become one of the top three parties, the law has been revived. In other words – whenever a threatening political movement rises in power to challenge the established order, this law gets pulled out.

2) The law would require all PVV donators to be made public, and this could bring them in danger – Not for nothing does Wilders wander around with heavy protection every day. The law would therefore actually be undemocratic because it would scare away Dutch individuals who would otherwise support the PVV.

3) According to Brinkman, only nine democracies provide state money for political parties, so the Netherlands already belongs to a minority of states. (needless to say, he didn’t name the other eight, and one wonders if he knows what he is talking about here).

4) The fact that the Freedom party might obtain its money from the US is nobody else’s business.

5) Final point – the new law is so full of holes that it will be possible to find the gaps in it anyway. For instance, money coming in to local branches of a political party will not have to be declared, offering a large and obvious loophole.

Obviously, for any normal politician it would have take around ten minutes to outline these points. For Brinkman, however, this was a useful stage for a tirade against all things leftist and CDA-ish, stringing out his defence of the wonderful contribution that the PVV makes to Dutch democracy so much that the questioners had to repeat their enquiries more than once in order to get an answer out of him. Dibi’s protests that the law reflects the anti-corruption stance of Dutch foreign policy – which the PVV supports – went nowhere against Brinkman’s determination to avoid real debate on the issue. For anyone who wants a taste, the debate can be found here.

Looks like a solid majority in parliament want to pass the law. Is it anti-PVV? It is an important move to standardise Dutch politics by getting everyone to play by the same rules - and there is only one loser, as the Dutch press have made clear. Private financial arrangements are the life and soul of the whole Wilders operation. He has to be able to declare a distance between himself and ‘the state’ (i.e. established politics), otherwise his whole carefully constructed image collapses.

Brinkman’s Pyrotechnics included the announcement that the PVV would find ways around the law if necessary, a sign of the way ahead. But the law could just add extra weight to the apparent decline in Wilders’ fortunes shown by recent opinion polls. When it comes to the effects of economic crisis, will the voter after all choose the Socialists over the PVV? Maybe….

Albertine Bloemendal

A week after the Obama administration released its Strategic Defense Review and in anticipation of the upcoming NATO summit in Chicago in May, Dutch Defence Secretary Hans Hillen was in the United States to discuss budget cuts in defence spending as well as the development of the F35/Joint Strike Fighter.

After meeting with his American counterpart Leon Panetta, Secretary Hillen spoke at the Atlantic Council in Washington DC on “how the Atlantic alliance can keep its triple A status in an age of austerity.” Hillen’s answer was threefold: 1) NATO needs to adapt to new strategic realities, 2) it needs to substantially deepen its defence cooperation and 3) it has to secure public support for the alliance through political will and leadership. The main focus was on the importance of defence cooperation, especially in Europe.

Hillen promised the Netherlands would take a leading role in intensifying defence cooperation in Europe, something he has been pushing for a while now. Last November, Hillen initiated a debate on this topic in the Dutch parliament in which he pleaded for a fresh and pragmatic approach to the idea of sovereignty, which was not well received by Geert Wilders’ PVV. The Dutch Defence Secretary called for a ‘relaxed’ discussion and promised the Netherlands would lead by example, hoping to inspire other European countries to deepen defence cooperation from the bottum up. Joint investment and procurement should be the starting point.

Approached from this angle, Hillen was actually able to present recent trouble with the development of the JSF/F35 [see HB post JSF - Hanging In There] as one of the most promising opportunities for closer defence cooperation in a time of austerity: the ‘price problem’ has created a platform for cooperation between the Netherlands and countries like Denmark and Norway to think about collaboration in the fields of acquisition, maintenance “and perhaps even in the field of operations”. He identified the ‘formality’ of NATO as the biggest obstacle to success. (“If you’ve ever been to a NATO meeting, it is so formal, so dreadful…”). “Relaxation” was to be the key word, Hillen declared (about seven times), without it nothing would be possible.

With regards to his last point – the importance of public support for NATO – it seems that Hillen may have some reason to be relaxed: the Dutch Atlantic Association (Atlantische Commissie) just released the outcome of an opinion poll by TNS/NIPO concerning Dutch opinions about NATO and Dutch security which shows that 79% of the Dutch think NATO membership is important to their security and 73%  believes that NATO offers a positive contribution to the Dutch-American relationship. Furthermore, only 15% of the responders were in favor of more budget cuts in the defence realm.

While many Europeans have expressed concern about the American defence strategy’s change of focus from Europe and NATO to Asia and the Pacific, Hillen declared he was optimistic, saying he regards the American document as “a commonsensical response to a rapidly changing world.” According to him, America’s growing strategic attention towards Asia is a very logical development. It does mean, however, that Europe, for its part, will need to pick up more of the burden when security problems arise on its own periphery.

“It is obvious that the European and American continents are drifting apart,” Hillen said at the end of his speech. “This has been going on for some time, it is impossible to stop and will result in closer proximity of the US to the Far East than to Europe. The good news is that this is only a geological fact and that our tectonic plates only drift apart with a speed of two centimeters per year.”

The revelation in a tv documentary on Monday night that Maxime Verhagen wanted to mobilise the AIVD to find out about Geert Wilders’ plans with Fitna has kicked up a major storm in parliament this week. The opposition has been busy peppering the cabinet with demands for an explanation. Yet somehow the words ‘storm’ and ‘teacup’ come to mind. And Wilders himself has remained pretty much out of sight.

On Tuesday the parliament demanded a response from Interior Minister Piet Hein Donner, but he adopted the classic ‘neither confirm nor deny’ approach, and gave the usual rejoinder that all matters discussed by the ministerial council and concerning the AIVD are secret and shall remain so. But any opportunity to undermine the cabinet is worth seizing, so we had the spectacle of Tofik Dibi (Groenlinks), Alex Pechtold (D66), and Jeroen Recourt (PvdA) falling over themselves to table questions and haul Donner back to parliament for further interrogation on Thursday.

Dibi wants the CITVD to investigate, because after all MPS should be allowed to express their views freely and if necessary should receive the protection of the security services to do so. Pechtold thought this was a cheap shot, instead demanding that Donner and Verhagen walk the plank while facing a barrage of criticism from the irate opposition. Recourt protested that this was evidence of an undermining of the democractic system – ‘Nixon-like practices’, for which Nixon (read: Verhagen) had to resign. All three of them then joined forces to submit a list of 11 questions for Donner and Verhagen, including the following: Can you provide an overview of the members of parliament who have been eavesdropped or surveilled by the intelligence services? If not, why not?

What is going on? Firstly this is not only an opportunity for more cabinet-bashing, but more specifically Maxime-bashing, the real entertainment for a large section of the parliament (including a large chunk of his own Christian Democrats). So far Donner has taken the flak, and on Thursday he responded true to form (plenty of outraged indignation etc). Secondly this seems to be yet another chance for taking the AIVD down a peg or two, it being a popular target for those afraid that the ‘secret state’ is forever undermining the democratic system. Others disagree – aivdwatch has pointed out that we need the AIVD to watch out for serious breaches of democratic protocol, as the case of Wilders’ PVV colleague Gidi Markuszower illustrated not so long ago. And Roelof Bouwman has reminded us that not so long ago members of the Communist party, the Pacifist Socialists, even the Farmers party were regular targets for security service surveillance as ‘threats to the state’.   

Wilders, of course, has been here before – back in 2007 the Telegraaf printed a story, leaked from the AIVD, about Wilders’ visits to the Israeli Embassy which triggered a list of questions from GW  himself for the then Interior Minister Guusje Ter Horst. The Minister denied the allegations but refused to go any further than that. Vrij Nederland (among others) jumped in to question the right of the AIVD to leak judgements on a politician’s loyalty to the press.

So four years ago the Left backed Wilders against the security service, saying he should be allowed to visit the Israelis any time he wants. In 2011 the Left again backs Wilders on suggestions of surveillance of his Fitna project, even though the security service clearly rejected this task. GW as an unjust target of state power? Do Dibi, Pechtold and Recourt really know what they are doing?

Activities                    31%

Infrastructure              12%

AIVD Expenditure 2010: Annual Report

On 29 May 2002 the Algemene Inlichtingen en Veiligheidsdienst and the Militaire Inlichtingen en Veiligheidsdienst were both created out of their Cold War forerunners, the BVD and the MID. The AIVD’s task was expanded with the removal of the division between foreign intelligence and dometic security – from then on it would be doing both. The time was right for expansion. Al Qaeda were meant to be everywhere and Pim Fortuyn had been gunned down only 23 days before by someone from the Green radical underground.

From 2002 to 2005 the AIVD grew from around 850 to 1100 employees and its budget mushroomed from 68m to 112m Euro. By 2010 it had expanded further to a staff of around 1400 full time equivalent and a budget of 191m Euro. The early 2010 talk of cutting every government department by 20% obviously led the AIVD to remind everyone that cutting back on national security was a risky business. The Ministry of Defence can lose its tanks, but the Ministry of Home Affairs can’t lose its surveillance and listening gear. The activities of foreign intelligence – particularly for economic espionage – were increasingly a threat. The political capital to be gained from cutting the AIVD’s budget - outside of the consistent criticisms of AIVD phone tapping and dodgy relations with journalists from parliament’s leftist ranks – remained pretty much at nil. And the AIVD instead showed in its annual report for 2009 an ambition to introduce ‘forward defence’ – a greater presence in trouble spots around the world.  With few threats at home, they had to go out and look for them elsewhere.    

This could now be changing. There were rumblings within the CDA’s 2010 election manifesto to merge the AIVD and MIVD, although no reason was given other than the need to ‘harmonise’ the security apparatus. In the CITVD’s report on the February Sirte mission released on 1 November, the principal accusation was that the AIVD and MIVD failed to work together in any coherent way and that if the mission told anything is was that better coordination was needed. The need for better coordination has been a repetitive complaint for several years. Last week a new chief of the AIVD was appointed, and to everyone’s surprise it was a military man: Lieutenant-General Robert Bertholee, the former commandant of the army and someone with no particular experience in the world of intelligence. As former MIVD boss Pieter Cobelens stated to the NRC yesterday, Bertholee had even opposed making intelligence a separate professional unit within the army.

With incredulity from his military colleagues marking his appointment, it could be that Bertholee’s arrival is no more than a move to ensure smoother relations between the two services. But with extra government cuts of around 5bn Euro looming, it could genuinely be a move to keep options open on the AIVD-MIVD front after a decade of intelligence-and-security growth. And both Defence and Internal Affairs are in the hands of CDA ministers. 

How would the PVV react to any such move? Tomorrow night part two of the documentary series on ‘The Wilders Process’, tracking the story of how Wilders ended up in court, will make the claim that in 2007 Maxime Verhagen (then Minister of Foreign Affairs) wanted the AIVD to find out more about the content and release date of the film Fitna. Both his ministerial colleague Guusje ter Horst (Internal Affairs) and the National Coordinator for Counter-Terrorism chief Tjibbe Joustra confirm that they rejected this move. Wilders has so far not responded. One wonders if it will have any impact on his opposition to further spending cuts.

There is a growing academic research and consultancy industry on the issue of nation-branding, specifically: how a nation-state can improve its impact in the world by building a credible, recognisable brand-name for itself. Classic examples are Spain leaving Franco behind and re-creating itself as an idyllic, culturally-rich Mediterranean hotspot, and Norway earning a reputation as a quiet but effective behind-the-scenes conflict-resolver (otherwise known as ‘niche diplomacy’). But brands, as with anything in the marketplace, are not permanent and need to be constantly nurtured, otherwise the credibility soon dissolves. Spain has run into trouble as its hotspot image hits the financial buffers, but Barcelona remains ultra-cool. Norway has entered a period of major soul-searching now that Anton Breivik has shattered the domestic peace, but it remains an effective diplomatic force.

While there are plenty of recorded success stories, it is more interesting to watch the complete fragmentation of a national brand up close, in real time. Welcome to the Netherlands in late 2011.

When Uri Rosenthal became Foreign Minister just over a year ago, there was a sense that his reputation as a heavy-weight domestic political fixer and trusted advisor to Mark Rutte would carry some momentum into foreign affairs. Together with State Secretary Ben Knapen (‘The Nonconformist’), it was a noticeable change of tack for the Ministry. But the writing was already on the wall in the Governing Agreement between VVD and CDA that identified Israel as the only land that the Dutch minority government would strengthen relations with.

Overall, the Agreement declared that the Netherlands would “pursue international stability and security, the supply of energy and raw materials, the promotion of international law, and the trade and economic interests of the Netherlands and Dutch companies.” One year down the line and it is clear that Israel and economic interests – very narrowly defined – dominate everything coming out of The Hague. The long tradition of the Netherlands being on the side of a just, balanced international system, with development aid and peace-keeping as central parts of this, is being left behind for a petty nationalism lacking any vision except for immediate selfish gain. The Dutch brand is in free-fall.

Rosenthal has been repeatedly criticised for his ham-fisted determination to push national interests abroad. A discreet survey by the NRC, published yesterday, of Dutch diplomats and civil servants has produced a highly negative insight into the diplomatic apparatus. The pro-Israeli standpoint had led to the isolation of the Netherlands in the EU and the loss of one of the central planks of the Dutch brand, the support of human rights. The minimal Dutch contribution to NATO’s Operation Unified Protector – compared even to Denmark, or Belgium, which still doesn’t even have a government – and the hardly-worth-bothering-about ‘police training mission’ in the northern Afghan province of Kunduz has reduced The Hague from a worthwhile trustworthy ally of Washington to a small insignificant inward-looking country that the Americans don’t care about any more. G20 participation is long, long gone. The blinkered focus on economic interests has reduced the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to little more than an appendage to the Ministry of Economic Affairs under Maxime Verhagen.

In short, the current leadership of foreign policy is dismantling the Dutch brand, piece by piece, norm by norm, value by value. This is not totally down to Geert Wilders either – Rosenthal has long been an Israel supporter and does not need heat from the PVV to follow that line. This is simply his style. Typical is his reaction to the NRC‘s expose on Binnenhof today, disliking the fact that civil servants had spoken to the paper anonymously and dismissing them as the no-hopers most afraid of their jobs with the coming 75m Euro cuts at the Ministry. Not a response that suggests much self-reflection, or a willingness to accept criticism. He reacted equally negatively at the end of October after interviews with various ambassadors in the NRC sketched the Netherlands as an increasingly provincial land where small issues dominate the political scene.

As Juurd Eijsvoogel reminded everyone a week ago, the Dutch ‘Alleingang’ is a costly business. The promotion of economic interests relies on maintaining positive relations with your partners. Demanding results for oneself while ignoring the standpoints of others is a rapid way to de-friend yourself. As the Belgian ambassador put it – the Dutch could start by listening to others more (listening is not a Dutch strong point). Having spent the past decade nurturing a brand of international repute, the Dutch Foreign Ministry is now reducing everything to simplistic chauvinism.

In ‘Thoughts on Rutte I’ I wrote about the eroding status of the national parliament and the contrast between the chagrin of sidelined MPs and the cheerful confidence of the prime minister. Ironically, the one member of parliament who at times manages to dispel the smile from Mark Rutte’s face is perhaps the one with the least reason to worry about losing influence. Geert Wilders has the ear of the prime minister as well as of the media whenever he speaks. Rutte does not have the luxury of ignoring Wilders, whose support keeps the minority VVD-CDA cabinet afloat. Whenever Wilders’s Freedom Party (PVV) is unwilling to back up the government, as with any attempt to bail out the Greeks, Rutte is forced to seek the support of opposition parties.

That both sides are not always happy with their political alliance was on full display during budget deliberations in the Tweede Kamer last September, which saw Wilders and Rutte shouting “doe eens normaal man!” at each other after the latter distanced himself from the qualification of Turkish government leader Erdogan as an “islamic ape” by a member of Wilders’s party. More than the literal meaning of the reproach (“just behave normally for a change!”), it was the sharp tone used by both Wilders and Rutte that set off a wave of indignation and embarrassed reactions from political friends and foes alike.

Since the notorious shouting match there are signs that both sides are growing increasingly uncomfortable with their political dependency on each other. Wilders has already said that he expects more obstacles on the road for next year, hinting that there is a limit to his patience with ministers casting doubt on policy targets agreed upon between his party and the government. Rutte has carefully avoided voicing doubts about his cooperation with the PVV and he prevented a conflict between Wilders and immigration minister Leers from escalating, forcing the latter to swallow remarks that implicated a departure from a targeted reduction of immigration numbers, a core cabinet promise to the PVV. Still, by shooting back at Wilders in the September debate – “behave normally yourself!”, condemned by many as disgraceful and unworthy of a prime minister – he has shown that he is not willing to hold onto his pact with the populists at any cost.

The most obvious obstacle to continued cooperation between the CDA-VVD government and their parliamentary partner is Europe. Wilders has warned repeatedly that he will drop his support if the government continues to “throw money at Greece” and transfer more powers to Europe. The liberals and christian-democrats however have embarked, for mostly pragmatical reasons, on an increasingly pro-European course. With the deepening debt crisis screaming for a European solution, a retreat away from Europe seems impossible for the government parties, which does not bode well for the partnership’s chances of survival in 2012.

Prime minister Rutte, who has said that Wilders’s foreign policy does not reach beyond Flanders and Israel, has no illusions about the PVV’s Europe-mindedness. As he seeks, and finds, support from opposition parties for his dealings with Europe, he knows that the moment approaches when the concessions exacted by the opposition will clash with those promised to Wilders. In a year set to be dominated by domestic budget cuts and bail-outs of eurozone partners, a year also that is likely to see spreading social protests and rising political tensions, that moment could arrive sooner rather than later. In between the smiles, expect a shouting match or two.

[Thanks to 3DN for the image]

It’s not easy being a Member of Parliament these days. You call the prime minister to your venerable Chamber – on a Saturday, no less! – to grill him on his negotiation positions ahead of crucial crisis talks with other European government leaders, and all he tells you is that he can’t tell you anything lest he compromise his strategy for the summit. A little stunned, you threaten not to approve whatever deal he takes home from the summit, but the PM laughs at the suggestion – knowing that you will think twice before saying ‘no’ to a hard-fought European decision eagerly awaited by a whole continent plus the rest of the world. You put on your angriest face, yet the PM remains cheerful, responding to your chagrin with a broad and humiliating smile.

With minimal support and an overloaded portfolio, you work hard, very hard, but who pays attention?

You think up all these catchy oneliners, yet the media refuse to quote them (that is, if your name is not Wilders). Watching the evening news, you notice to your annoyance that the Brussels correspondent gets more primetime minutes than his colleagues in The Hague – I ask you! Here you are, taking seriously your role as supervisor of the executive branch, yet everyone seems to be ignoring you or laughing at you. A parliament is supposed to hold government to account. But what if there is increasing competition on the accountability market? If the government is accountable to fellow EU government leaders, occasionally to the European Commission, and increasingly often even to the European Parliament – that wannabe assembly you and your MP friends used to poke fun at, also known as refuge for less talented party colleagues who had trouble making it in The Hague – where does that leave you, as a dedicated national parliamentarian in an increasingly supranational world?

Meeting on the eve of the EU debt crisis summits (23 and 26 October), the Tweede Kamer in The Hague was eager to claim its role in the unfolding political drama around Greece and the euro. Prime minister Rutte was not impressed with this parliamentary muscle-flexing, however, and kept his cards to his chest, unwilling to relinquish whatever small negotiating freedom he had in Brussels. MP Arie Slob of the opposition Christian Union, as quoted in Trouw, drew a bitter conclusion: “This is about billions of euros, but we are being dragged along. Parliament stands on the sidelines.” Trouw itself wondered: “Would this not create the impression that Parliament turns off the lights in The Hague, while in Brussels the sparks fly off the power cables?”.

No, times are not easy for MPs. Parliament used to be at the heart of decisionmaking in the national capital. While still located in the heart of the capital, it is no longer the place where it all happens. Nowadays most major decisions are made in Brussels, just a few hours’ drive from The Hague yet oh so far away. As Europe’s economies suffer and governments feel compelled to take a flight forward, handing over ever more power to Brussels, it seems inevitable that national parliaments will see their clout waning further. Not, of course, that you and your fellow MPs in The Hague, Berlin, Madrid or Budapest would publicly admit it.

In times like these, you crave for a vulnerable, colourless, stammering prime minister. And what do you get? An irritatingly good-humored, charismatic and eloquent head of government who seems to genuinely enjoy the most critical questions.

“A roadworker has a tougher job”, a relaxed prime minister Rutte said to reporters after his meeting with the Tweede Kamer, referring to his hectic schedule as he was about to rush back to Brussels for nightly deliberations with his European colleagues. His body language said that he meant it. His encounter with the parliamentarians had been jolly; a welcome break away from the politics on the main stage.

Further evidence that the shaky European economic and financial situation is having an impact – however confused – on electoral patterns has emerged from the Swiss federal elections on Sunday. Just as happened in Denmark over a month ago, the nationalist-populist party (SVP) lost, against the trend of pollsters’ predictions. But the loss looks marginal – a decline of three or four percent – and the voters, instead of moving en masse to another destination, spread their support across the centre-right / centre-left political landscape. 

The SVP has become notorious for its anti-immigration posters, portraying Switserland as a nation being trampled on by outsiders and theatened by mosques. It had success in 2007 , gaining 28.9% of the vote, and hoped to break the 30% barrier this time around. Looking to break through the strong consensus system of Swiss politics, the SVP had made powerful use of referenda as a form of direct democracy. SVP’er Oscar Freysinger is quoted in the NRC as saying that “referenda are the best way to prevent a gap opening up between politicians and voters.” They are also a useful means of mobilising a single-issue populist campaign.

Over on swissinfo.ch the debate has started on why the results came out as they did. Alongside a nice contribution from Libya - ”Simply put: The Swiss are wiser than people thought” – there’s a Dutch comment:

“I think what is happening is basically that people go back to what matters, which is their lifestyle and economic issues. In certain countries, people would lean to the far right, but in Switzerland, which has had great success with center-right policies for decades, people just go back to what used to work. Fear of the bearded foreigners is not such a success strategy when you have to worry about the real basics.” Aaron K, Netherlands, 24.10.2011

Needless to say, the bearded and unbearded foreigner can easily end up the scapegoat for political parties looking to capitalise on economic concerns. But blaming Abdul for the strength of the Swiss franc seemed a step too far for many Swiss voters – at least, around 75% of those who turned out.

One wonders if ‘the real basics’ will play a role elsewhere in Europe as well. But we are talking marginal change here. Its true, two of the strongest populist parties have suffered set-backs at the polls in the last two months. But the damage has been around 3% for both of them, and no party has risen substantially to challenge them either.  

Needless to say, Wilders has kept close tabs on the SVP’s campaign tactics and use of referenda. In September he played the referendum card on financial support for Greece – a nice ploy, since he knew it would never happen and yet he still looks good in defending the interests of the Dutch tax-payer against the Hague elite, again. And he shares one other issue with his Swiss as well – a complete lack of transparency on party funding. The SVP apparently got through over $41m in advertising revenue in 2007-2020 – almost double that of the second-placed party – and does not need to state where it came from.

[Thanks to Spiegel Online]

Three weeks ago the Groene ran an editorial by Yashe Lange that pointed out how support for Kia Kjaersgaard’s People’s Party (PP) in Denmark, long the ‘political guide’ for Geert Wilders and European populism, was reaching its limits. With elections looming, it looked like the Volksparti’s support was waning as concerns amongst the electorate shifted towards economic woes. Can the results of Thursdays popular vote tell us anything? 

Kjaersgaard came out of the elections last week with a three-seat loss – hardly a dramatic fall, from 25 to 22. It was a high turn-out – 87.7% – and that usually plays out to the advantage of the Left. It did, but only just.

The PP was supporting a centre-right government led by Lars Rasmussen and the Liberals, and for the past ten years the party has been able to use its votes to direct policy down channels of its liking without itself taking on governmental responsibility – a model now being tried and tested in the Netherlands. But with the budget deficit set to rise to 4.6% next year, Rasmussen was aiming to introduce austerity measures that would go against the PP’s social welfare platform. As the PP’s programme says, ”Health care and the public hospital service must be of the highest standard and should, in principle, be publicly financed through taxation.” Instead of falling in line, Kjaersgaard chose the path of opposition and the alliance of convenience was broken.

The election victory for the Left last Thursday was indeed narrow – a total of 89 seats in the 179 seat parliament. Rasmussen’s Liberals even came away with a one seat gain and remain the largest party. 

The focus has largely been on how this result signals the end of immigration as a major electoral topic, as if this means one of the foundational pillars of Europopulism is now fading out. The gimmicky reintroduction of border controls was a piece of political grandstanding that showed the PP was losing the plot. But it still came out with 22 seats, and as we have seen from Wilders, a crafty anti-establishment media-savvy campaign can constantly switch from topic to topic and maintain momentum for much longer than you might think.   

But there is far more we can draw from this. The most important thing to take away is the simple fact that the Left actually managed to work together and produce a result. The victorious 89-seat coalition led by Social Democrat Helle Thorning-Schmidt includes the Social Liberals, the Socialist People’s Party, and the Red-Green Alliance – the kind of moderate to hefty Leftist spectrum that usually ends up in an ideological punch-up within five minutes. Thorning-Schmidt’s Social Democrats actually lost one seat and remain the second-largest party behind the Liberals, yet she still comes out as Prime Minister because of the solid Leftist electoral pact. 

As the Liberal-Christian Democrat coalition heads into a vital phase for its own austerity plans, the message from Denmark seems shaky but clear – if the Left can agree to fight together it can gain enough support from those who will face severe financial hardship if the 18 billion cuts in state spending go through. The impact of such cuts in a period of serious financial uncertainty around the Euro and minimal growth rates could be chronic.

Lessons to be learned? Maybe Job Cohen will think “Hey, how can the Danish Social Democrats lose an election and still their leader becomes Prime Minister?” Maybe its time for the Dutch Left to finally get its act together and cooperate. Maybe the Danes have an interesting message this time for the Left, not the Right.

The candidates for the Canadian federal elections in 2011. Stephen Harper, leader of the Conservatives, won with a fear-mongering, accusatory populist campaign. [Thanks to The Inquisitr for the image]

Below is the full-length English version of my article published in Trouw last weekend. The Dutch published version is in the THB Media section.

“The rise of populism in Western democracies is transforming the way politics is being conducted, and changing expectations of what politics can and should deliver. The success of populist movements in the United States, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Finland over the past year suggests that common concerns and issues are driving these developments. Some observers see a greater challenge for the rechtstaat from the European ‘New Right’ than from their American cousins. So how do the populisms of North America and Europe match up to each other?

On several issues North American and European populists see eye to eye. There is a common anti-elitism directed at an established apparatus of political power and leaders who are ‘out of touch’ with ‘the people’. There is a common rejection of this (generally social democratic) elite’s cosmopolitanism, which is condemned as a cultural relativism that undermines the ‘real’ values of national society. There is the demand for closed borders and an end to (ethnic minority) immigration to protect national identity. There is the common association with Christian civilisation (not Judeo-Christian due to anti-semitic tendencies from some corners of European populism). There is a common belief in the need for improved law and order to protect the citizen against crime. And there is the introduction of a rhetoric of violence into everyday political discourse that is one step away from condoning bodily harm. The gunsight crosshairs that marked close-call congressional electoral campaigns on Sarah Palin’s website last November may have been a typical ‘rogue’ gimmick, but they looked very different after Jared Loughner shot Representative Gabrielle Giffords and killed six others in Tucson on 8 January (and Palin took them off her website very quickly afterwards). Such views are not confined to the US on the other side of the Atlantic either. The recent electoral success of Stephen Harper’s Conservative party was exactly based on promoting divisions and fears in Canadian society against a liberal elite who might “steal” the result (and around 40% of Canadians voted for his agenda).

Against this, there are several issues which divide the Americans from the Europeans (and the Canadians). Firstly, there is their attitude towards the roots of political authority. For Americans the US constitution is an almost holy document that guarantees the rights of the citizen against an ever-encroaching government. For many Europeans the national constitution is either an obscure document or actually an obstacle to realizing populist demands. Geert Wilders’ attack on the anti-discrimination Article 1 van het Nederlandse Grondwet is a good example.

Secondly, there are the forms of organisation. The Tea Party is more or less a conglomerate of local initiatives without Sany particular leader (although Sarah Palin and Ron Paul are prominent unofficial figureheads), held together only by a common dislike of ‘The Government’ and Washington DC ‘elites’. While most Tea Party supporters are solidly Republican, they also form a threat to that party’s established hierarchies, and since last year there is a Tea Party Caucus on Capitol Hill with 64 congressional members. In contrast to the loose party system in the US which allows this, European populists have effectively created political movements that masquerade successfully as parties in order to channel discontent into power. Electoral pressures have led to these views becoming absorbed into the broader political mainstream as centrist parties move to the right. Thilo Sarrazin’s anti-immigration book Deutschland schafft sich ab stirred up a lot of controversy in Germany last year, but remarkably it was not enough to get him expelled from the leftist SPD.

Thirdly there is the ‘us and them’ mentality of ‘het volk tegen de vreemdeling.’ The European populists’ cultural focus on immigration and Islam threatens the rights of minorities and separates them as second-class citizens. In the US, aside from the extremism of the ‘birthers’ who deny President Obama is an American, it looks as if there is more concern for individual civil liberties than ethnic origin. On the whole it is true that whereas European populism is often motivated by identity-politics, American populism is more motivated by an idea. However the US movement is predominantly white and it has gained traction due to its opposition to President Obama. It is also focused on the (cultural) threat from the illegal immigration of Hispanics across the Mexican border. Although it obviously denies being racist, there have been enough signs that under the surface it is no more than a racially-charged politics of division that claims to represent national unity. In these circumstances it is difficult to tell how much the Tea Party movement will have an impact on the 2012 presidential election. Up till now Obama has played a clever game, acknowledging these critical voices but gently mocking them at the same time. If Obama is able to gain more support from political moderates by exposing the Tea Party’s extremism in this way, he may have a formula for winning a second victory.

Fourthly, the financial crisis has exposed differences in the anti-elitism. The Tea Party movement reacted with emotional horror to Obama’s attempt to increase federal controls over Wall Street, seeing this as another example (similar to the health care issue) of the government increasing its powers over the free market. The issue of government power over people’s lives is the number one issue – the details of why it might be needed are often denied or ignored. In contrast, European populist movements will support socio-economic legislation that protects those feeling vulnerable. It may sometimes be cynical, as with Wilders’ attitude towards the retirement age after last year’s elections, but it does show that traditionally leftist issues have been taken up by otherwise rightist movements. So while in the US the anti-elitism is aimed at Big Government, in Europe it can include Big Finance as well. This is one of the reasons for European populist opposition to the Euro and European integration.

The last issue that contrasts the US with Europe is foreign policy. In both cases there is no coherent picture emerging. The Tea Party is united around a solid belief in American exceptionalism and superiority – The United States will forever remain Number One. This involves an isolationist wish to disengage from global affairs, reject international legal demands and abandon the goal of promoting democracy abroad. However it also includes the use of overwhelming American (military) power if the nation is threatened. Whereas US leadership in the world is being challenged, there are few issues that can be successfully dealt with without American agreement. In contrast, European nationalist-populism opposes the development of the EU into a supranational actor, exposing the individual nation-states to their weak position in global affairs. Beyond this, there is little that unites the Europeans. While some populists embrace anti-Americanism (like the Front Nationale in France), others switch according to the circumstances (like the Austrian FPO). Some support free trade, while others want to regain national sovereignty over economic assets. But both American and European populism are united on one issue: they both deny that their influence is declining in a rapidly changing world.”