Do you feel lucky, punk? [source here]

Quite a week. With Paars Plus buried on Tuesday evening, all eyes returned once more to Palace Noordeinde. Normal practice meant that the party leaders from parliament would once again troupe past the Queen to offer shreds of wisdom and hints of some way forward. Not so. A trio of trusted advisors came and went that evening: First Chamber chairperson Rene van der Linden, Second Chamber chairperson Gerdi Verbeet, and State Council vice-chair Herman Tjeenk Willink. Then at 10 o’clock former minister president Ruud Lubbers arrived as advisor, and left as informateur. Informateur? Lubbers? Time for a new round of comment on the role of the monarchy in the Dutch political system.

The NRC led off today with a piece on Lubbers’ wish that the leaders of the VVD, CDA, and PVV start talking, seriously. He left the door open for a VVD-CDA minority cabinet supported by the PVV from the parliament. Even though this is officially not within his brief. Pragmatism, desperation, take your pick.

Next came Mark Kranenburg and Pieter van Os on p. 3, doing the rounds of the constitution experts to check out if the Queen’s decision was legit. Huib Pellikaan pointed out that it is precisely in times of serious political division that the monarchy’s role is strongest, since the lack of a clear message from the party leaders allows the monarch to choose the path forward. We’ve seen that more than ever since June 9. Lodewijk Rogier added that this is really the last vestige of royal power within the Dutch political system, and therefore it is precisely during these periods that all (critical) attention turns to the Queen’s role. He has a point. Opening supermarkets and launching ships one day, setting the course for the future of Dutch politics the next. For some, it kinda grates.

Rogier then dropped a mega-hint that this problem can only grow. While he (and many) have faith in the qualities of the current monarch, “if this situation occurs with another head of state in the future, then you’ll see that the discussion will turn out differently.” A tough call for Willem Alexander.

But its one thing to focus on the monarchy, and another to consider for a moment that maybe the parliament is quite happy if she takes on this role and saves them from the headache. This point was rammed home, lastly, by the NRC editorial on p. 7. The monarchy maintains this influential role by cabinet formation because the parliament has allowed it to do so. There have been attempts to disrupt it. In 1971 parliament voted in favour of a motion to take over the appointment of the informateur. The legal basis for a democratic, ‘republican’ system exists – but is never used. Earlier this year the parliament once again agreed to discuss the naming of an informateur following the elections. Once again, this option was avoided when the chips were down. Moves to open up debate on a ‘modernisation’ of the monarchy (i.e. complete removal of the monarchy from politics) – as attempted by former D66 leader Thom de Graaf in 2000 – have so far led nowhere. The monarchy clearly still plays a crucial role, because the politicians are not willing to fill the space that would be vacated. Maybe royalty still is at the heart of Dutch national identity and political process. But by default. And if its based on personality not position – for how long?

So where is it all going? The day before the Paars Plus talks collapsed, Geert Wilders popped up with an op-ed – in the NRC ! – that was a translation of his response to the Muslims Debate site that wanted to know ’why he became anti-Islam’. The piece obviously caught a lot of media attention elsewhere – the original English version is available here. Wilders’ big statement before cabinet responsibility? Maybe.

Some trenchant details:

1) the inevitable quote from Churchill (all these right-wing Western civilisation types bring out Churchill, guaranteed every time);

2) Israel is clean and well-run while all Arab states are dirty, poor and chaotic (maybe divide US civil + military aid – $3 to 4bn a year, unconditional – by the Israeli population – 7.5m – and you’ll find out why, Geert).

But the big message of course is that Islam – and the all-powerful but unknowable Allah – takes away individual freedom, to the detriment of all:

“The Arab, Turkish, Iranian, Indian, Indonesian peoples have tremendous potential. It they were not captives of Islam, if they could liberate themselves from the yoke of Islam, if they would cease to take Muhammad as a role model and if they got rid of the evil Koran, they would be able to achieve great things which would benefit not only them but the entire world.”

A call to freedom! Enough to clear the air and lever his way into the government? Its not a million miles away from Maxime Verhagen’s human rights mantra, after all. Except for some minor details that the CDA might struggle with. Such as Mohammed being referred to as “a mass murderer, a tyrant and a pedophile.”

So the question is – will Maxime swallow this, for the good of the nation? Or will he spit it out – for the good of the nation?

(De Pers, 18-1-2010) 

The parliamentary debate on the cabinet formation this week finally broke the ice on where the main parties really stand in relation to the PVV. Since it was the CDA that held the ‘keys’ to a right-wing majority cabinet, as Wilders put it, it was only fitting that it should be Maxime Verhagen who spelled it out, clear as day. The PVV is a threat to the democratic state. The party’s wish to ban the Koran, introduce a ‘hoofddoekjesbelasting’ and pursue an anti-Islamic foreign policy are dangerously controversial. In March this year Verhagen had already said that the PVV damaged the reputation of the Netherlands abroad. Now he has taken this line a step further.

Verhagen could have done us a favour by saying this more than two weeks ago, but credit to the CDA leader that he finally came out with a statement that puts the whole ‘PVV or no PVV’ deliberations into perspective. Calling these issues a threat to the democratic system also put them beyond discussion in cabinet negotiations. This is not policy, its democratic principle. In short, Verhagen basically named Wilders a pariah, outside of consideration. Having heard Verhagen draw the line, the other party leaders piled in to get an answer from GW. But he was not to be moved. You could almost hear his calculating mind weighing up whether it was worth it to launch an immediate counter-attack, but political prudence saw Wilders stay silent. For now.

Has Verhagen taken a fall for the sake of moving the cabinet formation along? His move was risky but could work out well for the CDA. Having broken the impasse and taken a stand, he may have set out the ground for a CDA revival by launching an appeal on principle to those doubting voters who left them at the polls on 9 June. In this sense he has nothing to lose. But in doing so he is closing out a right-wing cabinet and moving the CDA into the opposition, and that won’t be easy. The CDA is not used to that (since WW II it has only found itself in that position during the Wim Kok years of 1994-2002), and it will be sat next to an awkward, noisy PVV out to score points at any opportunity.

Verhagen’s move also effectively opened the path for the Paars-plus talks to get serious. With the CDA taking the brunt of the PVV, Mark Rutte was completely free to say he had no choice but to work with the Left, which of course he did. It was Wilders’ own fault, after all. GW’s silence was louder than any words. After weeks of dominating debate on the election hustings, he was finally put on the defensive. Verhagen’s move also fits with the court case against Wilders, set to continue this autumn, where he is accused of spreading hatred. A political and legal cordon sanitaire is coming into being, and its being led from the centre, not the left.

In mid-March Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen reported the results of an opinion survey on how other nations view the Netherlands. The purpose was to discover to what extent the domestic debate over Islam (“het binnenlandse moslimdebat”) was affecting the country’s trade position. The report also included details of the Dutch public diplomacy activities designed to promote positive opinion abroad.

The report makes interesting reading. The starting point is that the Netherlands has for many years held on to a positive image abroad (‘Nederland is een sterke merk’). In terms of recognition and associated values, the country is rated alongside the larger nations of Europe. Simon Anholt’s Nation Brands Index regularly places the Netherlands around position 10, 11, or 12 out of a total list of 50 nations tested. Leaving aside, of course, the dubious merits of a nation brand index, the point here is that a positive image can support the capability to achieve a range of foreign policy goals – in particular in this case the securing of favourable economic deals.

In 2008-2009 the Dutch trademark was tested in 15 countries: Belgium, France, UK, Spain, Italy, Germany, Poland, Egypt, Russia, Turkey, India, Indonesia, China, Brazil, USA. A mix of close European partners, BRICS, and important Islamic countries. Out of this lot the Netherlands received a positive judgement of between 5.9 and 8.3 out of 10. The scores – to the disappointment of the Ministry, were significantly lower in the non-European countries (with the exception of Brazil) than in Europe itself. In Turkey and Egypt the lowest scores were registered for Dutch moral standards and respect for other religions. Tough for the Ministry to take was also the fact that the Dutch are not recognised for being ‘open-minded’ or ‘tolerant’ – hard-working and friendly, yes, but thats as far as it goes. Lastly, the civil servants cannot be surprised to find that no-one regards the Netherlands as playing a leading role in the EU. The days of being one of the original path-finding Six are long, long gone.

Interesting result from the countries with a muslim majority: The values that the Netherlands likes to think it stands for - human rights, international law, international peace, and a reliable partner in international organisations –  are not accepted because they are selectively applied. The significance of this in the wake of the Davids report should not be lost. Likewise the Dutch are seen as predominantly pro-Israel, undermining its position as a credible partner in the Middle East peace process. And the ICC’s call to arrest Sudanese president Al-Basjir has gone down badly as well (the ICC’s location in The Hague placing it within Dutch foreign policy by proxy).

The response of Verhagen to these results was significant, because it didn’t take him long to draw direct links between some of the poor results and the ‘fear and hatred’ politics of Geert Wilders giving the Netherlands a bad name. So Wilders is damaging Dutch export capacity? This angle was explored by the Groene Amsterdammer in an article last week, which gave the word to among others the head of the Dutch employers’ association (Wilders damages the Netherlands “in an amazing way”). Funnily enough, the Groene didn’t have much interest in this approach, and instead focused on the damage to Dutch reputations coming from the impending withdrawal from Uruzgan. Is that going to have a negative effect in muslim countries? Unlikely. But it has in the US. Considering the trade balance with the US as compared with the Middle East, it is clear which is the most important trading partner – and where the Dutch trademark really matters.  

Incidentally, the NRC ran a nice reconstruction of the fall of the cabinet last weekend too. Biggest conclusion – it was complicated. Second conclusion – the crunch came when Verhagen, having obtained the letter from NATO Secretary General Rasmussen requesting an extension of the Dutch mission (with the acquiescence of Wouter Bos), then decided, without discussion, to send the letter to parliament and make it public. That careless attempt to force the issue and make Bos back down before the cameras exploded any trust between the two. So Bos, up to that point willing to find a way out, pulled the plug.

Final conclusion – Verhagen blew it, big time.

When Bos took over as leader of the Labour party in 2002, he inherited a party in disarray. Pim Fortuyn had wreaked havoc on the patrician presumptiousness of Ad Melkert, and Labour, which had been coasting under two Wim Kok-led cabinets from 1994-2002, suddenly collapsed into a heap of false assumptions about being the new centre of Dutch politics. (curious aside – Melkert exited the Netherlands and has forged a new career at the World Bank, UNDP, and since mid-2009 as UNDP Special Representative in Iraq. A recent interview suggests that he still hasn´t taken in what happened eight years ago, and his Iraq post has brought mixed reactions).

But back to Bos. Unlike Kok - former union leader – and Melkert – party apparatchik – Bos was a relative outsider, moving as he did from several years at Shell (Rotterdam, London, Hong Kong, Bucharest) to join the party in parliament  in 1998. His corporate experience showed – by 2000 he was already State Secretary for Finance, the number two at the Ministry. And he came out of a rock-solid Protestant – Labour family, his father being a diplomat and activist for the cause of international development. 

Bos came in as leader after the fall of Balkenende´s first cabinet in late 2002. Labour had fallen from 45 to 23 seats in the May 2002 elections, and it was a party lost to a wave of Fortuyn-inspired populism that rejected the arrogance of power apparently expressed by the established parties.  

The eletions in early 2003 produced a wonderful moment, albeit for the wrong reasons. Bos declared that he did not want to be premier himself should Labour win, and instead, just before the elections, he announced Job Cohen as candidate for future prime minister. It was a heavy gamble, and it missed its mark – just. Labour recovered to 42 seats, but couldn´t overcome the Christian Democrats who came away with 44. With the results coming in live on tv, the cameras at the Labour HQ caught Bos meeting an arriving Cohen surrounded by supporters. It was a poignant moment - so near and yet so far. It would also prove prophetic for what was to come. 

Bos´s main problem as Labour leader was his inability to get around the stubborn power of the Christian Democrats (CDA) at the centre of Dutch politics. In 2003, with the levers of power in the hands of Balkenende, it was inevitable that the CDA would not easily allow Labour back in to the ranks of power, and endless negotiations between the two ultimately led nowhere. Likewise personal relations between the two leaders were lousy from then on. Interestingly enough they both come from strong Protestant backgrounds (and both studied at the Free University in Amsterdam), but whereas Bos reflects the pragmatism of a can-do business approach, Balkenende is all high-blown principled moralism. And the two didn´t mix.

Bos´s pragmatism didn´t always work with party members or supporters either. Riding a wave of popular support in 2004-2005, which peaked with remarkable results in the local elections of 2006, it looked as if the tide was turning and Labour could once again claim the key middle ground of Dutch politics. But much of this support - beyond the usual rejection of the incumbent parties – was focused on Bos himself as charismatic leader. This was ok for a while, but it needed back-up with a coherent party programme. And when he entered that field in 2006, it was clear that he was prepared to take on some of the sacred cows in Dutch politics: linking pensions to income, reducing student travel concessions, and less tax relief for mortgage-holders among them. Criticism from within the party caused the pension plans in particular to be watered down. 

Out of that period came two things: the Labour party was effectively Bos himself, and Bos was prepared to think in public and change his mind. For the CDA this provided the opportunity, and all ammunition was focused on Bos as someone who could not be relied upon. The 2006 elections caused yet more bad blood between Bos and Balkenende as the CDA portrayed the Labour leader as, in American terms, someone who ‘flip-flopped’ and didn’t stick to his word. The accusations stuck, and Labour came out of the elections with 33 seats, trailing, once again, the CDA. 

Both Bos’s strengths and weaknesses had therefore been exposed during his time in opposition. From 2007-2010 he grapsed the poisened chalice of a Labour-CDA-Christian Union coalition and tried to get something out of it all as Minister of Finance. Should he have chosen to stay on the oppossition benches? The compromises were difficult: Labour gained money for inner cities and eduation, and a halt to liberalising rented housing,but had to give up on the mortgage tax relief and – a big issue – the demand for an inquiry into Dutch policy on the Iraq war. 

With his experience, it can’t be denied that Bos was the right person for the job when the credit crisis hit in late 2008. Following the fall of Lehman Brothers in September 2008, Bos rescued the Dutch operations of Fortis bank, including ABN AMRO, with 16.8 billion of state money in October. Several billions more followed for struggling ING bank. For his competence in adversity Bos was named politician of the year for 2008 by both politicians and media.

But the damage left by the credit crisis has been more than expected. The hole in state finances left by ABN AMRO has increased as the actual extent of its debts gradually emerged. Looking for sources of income tofill thee hole, Bos supported a plan to raise the pension age from 65 to 67. It was once again pragmatism over dogma, but it didn’t go down so well with Labour supporters seeing it as an unnecessary and unjust move. Bos spoke out earlier this year in his den Uyl Lecture against the way neoliberal market forces had been allowed to go solong unchecked. Social democracy is still on the back foot trying to judge what to fight for and what to give way on when it comes to market forces. Bos tried to find a way through, but discovered that being flexible could make him vulnerable tofriend and foe alike.  

It was foreign affairs that blew everything open in early 2010: The Davids report in January and Uruzgan in February. But the writing was on the wall already. Bos was an able politician, but he was unable to translate high levels of support between elections into actual election victory. 2003 was a great result in the circumstances, but 2006 was a major disappointment.

To his credit Bos analysed the outcome in public via The Wouter Tapes, a remarkably honest tv documentary following Labour leader and advisors through the election campaign of 2006 and its aftermath. Of all sources, this is probably the best for giving an insight into Bos’s character. It fits with his reaction to both the Davids report and the NATO-Uruzgan connection – he does not like backroom deals or decisions taken behind the scenes. It fits with his own sense that his leadership was heading in the right direction – at least for a while.

The entry of Job Cohen as Labour leader to replace Bos has certainly avoided an otherwise tired Bos-Balkenende battle this coming June. Even Wilder knows he may have met his match with the former mayor of Amsterdam. Will Dutch politics miss Bos, the leader who never was? Possibly. His experience highlights how difficult it has been to keep Labour on course in the 2000s, true to its values but able to bend when needed.

[Thanks to this blog for the image]

Reflecting on the Uruzgan fallout, I revisited something I wrote back in late 2007 following the decision to extend the Dutch mission for a further two years up to August 2010. Its worth taking another look with the current context in mind:

“Since the beginning of 2007 there have been clear indications that political manoeuvres were taking place in The Hague to prepare the way for a prolonging of the Uruzgan mission. Defence Minister Eimert van Middelkoop admitted as much in June when he stated that the cabinet had the ‘political intention’ to prolong, an honest announcement that still got him into trouble for apparently ignoring the need to get parliamentary support. Whose political intention was not clear, since other reports pointed to serious divisions between the Christian Democrats, in particular Foreign Minister Verhagen, and the Labour party’s Development Minister Koenders. But this was more than just a typical intra-coalition battle being fought through the committee rooms of the Binnenhof. In August the Chief of Staff, Dick Berlijn, declared that it would be ‘a moral failure’ for a prosperous nation like the Dutch to turn its back on Afghanistan. Meanwhile NATO was a constant factor in the political deliberations, something that van Middelkoop had admitted back in March when he said that pressures from abroad for a prolonging of the mission were growing. This pressure went public in September when the Secretary General of NATO de Hoop Scheffer declared that ‘no one can leave. No one is going to leave. I can honestly not believe that the Netherlands will be the only one to leave.’”

“By October the stakes were very high. Moral failure. Abandoning those less well off. Walking away from international commitments. It couldn’t have been clearer that any divisions still aggravating the Christian Democrat – Labour relationship would be overcome by much greater demands. Some financial compromises here, accents on particular policies there, and an agreement would be reached. Koenders has all along backed the mission as a vital exercise in pro-active development work, calling at one stage to transform the valleys of Uruzgan into the Betuwe through a substantial effort to improve agricultural production (i.e. get the farmers to grow something else other than opium poppies). Verhagen on the other hand has proved himself to be closely allied to US security policy in general. The original Uruzgan mission statement from late 2005 reflected this difference in emphasis between the two, with the mandate of the Dutch forces being to support socio-economic development and not having anything to do with the simultaneous US-led Enduring Freedom operation with its ‘hunt bin Laden’ motivation. This distinction prevented major resistance from the PvdA, and Koenders’ enthusiasm has done the rest. Socialists hate being told by the military that they are leading the country into moral failure. Koenders has as much a sense of mission as Verhagen, if only with a different emphasis.”

“But this is much more than a struggle between the Left and the Right in Dutch politics. The main issue in the Afghanistan question has all along been the role of the Netherlands in global politics, and here the declarations of both Berlijn and de Hoop Scheffer are key. What does this country stand for? It stands for free trade, the development of poorer regions of the world, international legal norms, the promotion of democratic freedoms, justice – In short, a stable legal order that enables international transactions in all fields to operate openly and smoothly, in the common interest. Two ‘pillars’ provide the backbone to this outlook. Firstly, there is a strong moral commitment from the Dutch in general for doing something for those in need elsewhere. Secondly, there is the security commitment to NATO as the fundamental organization around which Dutch military planning is orientated. The two pillars have combined around the mission to Afghanistan.”

In 2007 the impact of outside pressure on the Netherlands was very evident, all the way to a Dutch Secretary General of NATO taking the remarkable step of applying moral pressure on his own nation. This, coupled with the determination to believe in the development aspect of the mission, and – crucially – the failure of NATO to find a replacement for the Netherlands as an ISAF lead nation in South Afghanistan, eventually led to the Labour party agreeing to a two-year extension till 2010.

In 2009-2010 a similar situation presented itself, only this time, due to the strict timetable agreed in November 2007, the stakes were higher. On 25 September 2009 the cabinet declared that the mission would end in August 2010 and that no Minister would give any indication of what might follow until the cabinet had collectively agreed. But the signs of what was to come were already there on Wednesday 23rd, when Maxime Verhagen – in New York – stated that the Netherlands couldn’t simply pass the task in Uruzgan to others.

For Labour, the letter earlier this month from current NATO Secretary General Rasmussen requesting a new Dutch mission, for all its good intentions, fell exactly into the category of outside pressure that had been so evident back in 2007. It was a clear indication that once again the Netherlands was being manouevered into an Afghan escapade by a combination of external persuasion and domestic political interests. The publication of Rasmussen’s letter – a surprising move before any decision had been taken, to say the least – confirms this.

The general interpretation of Bos’s decision to end the coalition is that it was based on his domestic political battle with Balkenende and Verhagen and the hope that it would produce votes in the upcoming local elections. It is true that the merits of the Dutch mission in Uruzgan ultimately disappeared from the debate. But this conclusion misses the profound international dimension that was present all along – the ability of the Netherlands to take a different path from the one it was expected to take. And on that point Wouter Bos is an intriguing figure, because it is clear that he is highly resistant to US pressure, and he takes the idea of an independent national policy seriously, NATO or no NATO. With the Davids report on backroom deals and the Atlantic reflex still fresh in the memory, I think he stepped out of the cabinet as much for this reason as anything else. I recall a story that Bos, several years ago the state secretary at the Ministry of Finance, received an unwelcome telephone call from then US Ambassador Clifford Sobel offering some forthright advice on Dutch fiscal policy. Bos was not amused about this clumsy attempt at influence, and said so.

There is a line here. It raises some interesting questions, but I don’t see this point getting much air time in the Dutch media, I guess because it can be too easily caricatured as Anti-Americanism and that kills off any effort to take it seriously.

But word has it that visible contacts between the Netherlands government and the US are going to be kept to a minimum during the election campaign.

Latest political speculation: Elections are now being held on 9 June. If a cabinet of Christian Democrats, Liberals, and Wilders’ PVV could be formed relatively quickly, it might still be able to act on the Uruzgan mission before the 1 August deadline for its withdrawal…….

The Dutch have long considered themselves to be a builder of bridges between Europe and Washington. Europe is important but NATO is still fundamental on the Dutch strategic horizon. The current Minister of Foreign Affairs Maxime Verhagen stated in 2008 that “a strong Atlantic relationship directly serves Dutch interests” [Internationale Specator, 62 (Oct 2008)] When confronted with certain issues Dutch diplomats, contrary to the Belgians, thus still have a choice to make: going Atlantic or going European.

The European project is for the Dutch and its politicians a multilateral project, a far cry from the federal utopia the Belgians are pushing for. This cooperation among states can be expanded when needed, but the independent Dutch want to keep their options open. The plebiscite about the European constitution of the first of June 2005 was a more recent example of how the Dutch are rather cool lovers of a federal Europe.

From this comparative perspective, the claim that Dutch foreign policy is guided by a dogmatic Atlantic reflex must be tempered. It is correct that the Belgians made the right decision to condemn the Iraq War, but they did not explore all options. The Dutch, by contrast, thought about their options and believed that supporting the Americans would pay off and chose the Atlantic option. In hindsight it was a wrong choice, but calling that behavior dogmatic is overstated when we compare it with the Belgian decision-making process. The spirit that guided the Dutch decision was not the Atlantic Reflex, but the lack of a European reflex. If the Dutch government had convincingly promoted the Atlantic alliance, with the vigor that characterizes Belgian adherence to European integration, than one could speak about a genuine reflex.

However what rises up out of the five hundred pages of the Davids Report is the enormous difficulty that accompanied the decision of the Dutch government. Conversely, the Belgian decision to condemn a possible invasion was a cake walk. Consequently the Dutch decision-making process in itself – isolated from its outcome – can be interpreted differently. Compared to Belgium, the Dutch thoroughly evaluated all options, and then made the wrong decision. The decision of the Dutch government was not a consequence of too much dogmatism, but too little of it. Especially when we take into account the very flexible way that international law – an idea launched by a Dutchman named Hugo Grotius and embodied by the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court in The Hague – was interpreted.  

Although Belgium made the right decision, it is hard to say if the European reflex will pay off in the future. Nevertheless in a new world where new powers and new economies claim their rightful place at the table, a European reflex, or even a more modest European twitch, seems to be the more successful spasm that small countries such as the Netherlands and Belgium can possess.

The Netherlands – that oft-mentioned and much-loved but rarely analysed key player in international affairs – came in for quite some attention last Monday at an intriguing one-day seminar held at the Systems Planning Corporation, Washington DC, entitled ‘US-Dutch Relations: Shared history, Shared Future?’ Hosts were the Bureau of Intelligence and Research at the State Department, and the CIA’s Office of European Analysis. Boring? No.

Lots of people sat around a table describing themselves as ‘political analyst’. Two presentations on history, followed by two presentations on security, one on Dutch politics, and one on identity. The history goes way back – 1609 was the first physical contact between Dutch (still vassals in the Hapsburg empire) and North America (although the joke is that the captain of that voyage of the Halve Maen was an Englishman, Henry Hudson). The settlements never developed beyond a network of trading posts, and the Brits eventually took over in 1674. But the Dutch had their revenge, printing the Declaration of Independence and funding the rebels in the 1770s. Since then traces of Dutchness have remained, and there have been recent efforts to claim ‘tolerance’ as one of the virtues the Dutch passed to the Americans. After WW II, of course, relations became more dense as the Dutch actively engaged in all manner of political, intelligence, security, economic, and cultural networks spanning the Atlantic. “We don’t have a foreign policy,” one Dutch foreign ministry official is meant to have said in 1969, “we have only NATO.”

This stuff seemed to go down well with the CIA, who dig the longue durée perspective. The questions came in: What was the Dutch reaction to 9/11? How is the issue of climate change affecting bilateral relations? But the big issue was this: Is it holding together in the 21^st century? Are there not signs that this long-running unity of US-NL interests is starting to come apart (read: Afghanistan)? The security speakers were divided on this point. One, during an otherwise excellent overview of Dutch counter-terrorism policy, emphasised that the Guantanamo situation was shared by all – Europe should take on former Gitmo internees and bear the burden. Hmmmm. Not sure about that.

The other speaker raised the intriguing point that recent energy deals with the Russians (read: Shell) seem to have had an impact on the public orientation of Dutch foreign policy. Putin expelled Shell from the big money Sakhalin-2 oil project in 2006, but then invited them back in to operate in the Yamal peninsular last June. This occurred just around the time of the opening of the Hermitage in Amsterdam (nice combination of cultural and carbon diplomacy). What is more, the Netherlands and its Gasunie will become a key distribution center for Gazprom’s NordStream gas pipeline across the Baltic. And to cap it all, the Dutch seem to have shifted away from their original position in supporting NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia. This is quite a cocktail.

Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen, as Atlanticist as they come, has recently been avoiding outspoken pro-NATO statements in speeches, instead talking up the role of the EU. Now, with Lisbon about a month old, this kind of makes sense. But surely we are still in an era of Euro-US partnership, not substituting one for the other? Would there be a connection between Russian oil and gas, and a shift in the public outlook of the Dutch government? With Afghanistan still to be decided? To say the least, it’s a radical claim – not least, its something that might drive your average economic determinist into fits of euphoria.

If anything, though, the Dutch are good at playing both sides. They’ve done that for years with their double-sided orientation towards European integration and Atlantic cooperation. While Verhagen and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs talk up the EU, they remain died-in-the-wool fans of NATO, something that they share with their colleagues in the Ministry of Defence. There have been chinks in this armour. State Secretary for Foreign Affairs Frans Timmermans has been saying consistently that while the Netherlands shares many important factors with the Americans (openness, entrepreneurship, democracy, and social-religious diversity), the days of a knee-jerk support for US foreign policy are over. Interests have to be weighed, and sober conclusions drawn. Yet Verhagen’s back-pedalling on NATO pronouncements is probably more closely related to the cabinet’s clamp-down on Afghanistan-related statements before they have reached an agreement on what to do with Uruzgan. After all, the Foreign Minister’s previous excessive proclamations pretty much triggered the parliamentary motion to end all further involvement in ISAF as of end 2010. Instead, word on the street has it that a deal is probably going to be struck which involves 1) Dutch forces active in another part of Afghanistan, and/or 2) a scaled-down presence continuing in Uruzgan itself.

The big question is whether the Labour party will cause the cabinet to fall on this point, when they are riding so low in the polls. As you can imagine, the hosts were keen to test this one out on their visitors. The consensus amongst the Dutch present was that the key player in the immediate future – certainly going into the next election – would be Democrats 66 (D 66), a rather non-ideological footloose party that voters often flock to if the standard options are in complete flux. D 66 leader Alex Pechtold recently picked up the ‘political leader of the year’ award from the nation’s youth (i.e. those who don’t bother to vote), and wider polls suggest his party will do well. What this means for policy, however, is totally unclear. In 2005 D 66 tried to block the original Uruzgan mission and failed. What will they do if they have a bigger number of MPs?

The seminar ended with State and the CIA  – and the Dutch – looking well pleased with the day’s deliberations. They do many of these kinds of fact-finding sessions, the hosts said, but rarely were they as high quality or as in-depth as this one on the Netherlands. Clearly, even a one-day seminar like this can go a long way to re-affirm the ‘special relationship’.

Hilary Clinton and Maxime Verhagen at the Afghanistan Summit, the Hague, 31 March 2009

 (De Pers http://www.depers.nl/binnenland/296683/Goednieuwsshow-uit-Den-Haag.html)

Richard Holbrooke commented recently at the NATO ministerial meeting that he appreciated domestic pressures would have an impact on the Dutch government’s decision-making on Afghanistan, but that ultimately he didn’t understand Dutch politics at all. With NATO falling into line behind Obama’s commitment of 30,000 extra troops and a revived counter-insurgency strategy, the Netherlands sticks out as a prominent exception. In December 2007 the new coalition in The Hague stated that the current mission in Uruzgan would terminate in August 2010 and be fully withdrawn by the end of that year. In October 2009 the parliament voted against any new mission in Afghanistan, a vote all the more significant because it was introduced by two of the three parties in the coalition, the Partij van de Arbeid (PvdA) and the Christen Unie. Technically the parliamentary decision cannot define the government’s future policy direction – but it is a clear sign of deep division within the cabinet itself. The Dutch political timetable is currently totally at odds with what Washington wants. This is, to say the least, quite unusual.

How this will pan out over 2010 remains unclear. The cabinet has until the Spring to make a decision, and the key ministers – Christian Democrat Foreign Minister Frans Verhagen and Christen Unie Defence Minister Eimert van Middelkoop – are both keen to prolong the Dutch presence. But even the Christian Democrat party is now getting restive. Obama’s announcement that the escalation will be wound down by July 2011 would require a relatively minor adjustment to The Hague’s planning for the Dutch to join the NATO moral majority. But for once it looks like they are going to take a different path.

Two factors lie behind this.

Firstly there is the continuing political fall-out from the 2003 Iraq invasion. The Davids Commission is still to report on the decision-making that led to Premier Balkenende offering ‘political not military support’ for the Coalition of the Willing. Plenty of counter-factuals on Dutch military involvement have floated to the surface since, and the PvdA swallowed a bitter pill in abandoning its aim for an enquiry when it joined the Christian Democrats for the current coalition. It is unlikely that the Davids report will explode Dutch politics, but it’s a hangover from the past that still has to be worked through the system.

Secondly, there are serious electoral considerations involved. Since the early 2000s the Netherlands has seen the rise of a nationalist form of politics that has awakened a popular focus on domestic issues. Starting with Pim Fortuyn, it has since morphed via the individual movements of Rita Verdonk (Trots op Nederland / Proud of the Netherlands) and Geert Wilders (Partij voor de Vrijheid / Party for Freedom). While Verdonk’s star has waned, Wilders now holds nine seats in parliament and is running neck-and-neck in opinion polls with the Christian Democrats as the largest party in a future election, currently set for 2011. Troops out of Afghanistan and more police on Dutch streets is the Wilders message. On the Left, the Socialist party maintains a similarly nationalist platform and is competing with Wilders for the same pool of discontented voters. Meanwhile the social democratic PvdA has got squeezed in between. Insisting on a withdrawal from Uruzgan may regain some radicalism and give some pay-back to the Christian Democrats, but ultimately it will probably be a pyrrhic victory for the PvdA. The voters are clearly looking elsewhere.

The nationalist tone was illustrated by the June 2005 referendum that rejected Dutch ratification of EU Constitution. The current malaise on Afghanistan is in many ways an extension of that result, only this time not in a European direction but an Atlanticist one. NATO has long been the corner-stone of Dutch security policy, a stance only strengthened by the Dutch willingness to participate in US-led peace-making operations since Kosovo in 1999. But Dutch politics – and the popular mood – has been moving in a different direction for several years now. It looked as if the human rights / development agenda, for a long time a bonding mechanism between the Christian and Liberal Right and the Social Democratic Left, could be used to wallpaper over the cracks. Instead the nationalist turn in Dutch politics is starting to have an impact. The argument that Afghanistan represents a key episode for the future effectiveness of NATO might continue to drive the top of the Defence and Foreign Affairs ministries, but not much beyond that.

Obama, Hilary Clinton, and Ivo Daalder have all started to pressure The Hague to see reason and comply with the White House timetable, not its own. All manner of combinations and constructions will be formulated over the coming months as the policy-makers search for ways to stretch both coalition credibility and the Afghan commitment. But as one commentator in the NRC Handelsblad stated at the weekend, there is more at stake than 1700 military personnel stationed in southern Afghanistan. Dutch willingness to be at the front rank of NATO is coupled with Dutch desire to be present at the top table of global fora in general. The special invitations to Balkenende and Finance Minister Bos to attend the G20 this year were an important part of this. A no on Afghanistan will almost certainly mean no more similar invitations. How this ‘status factor’ will play out in the decision-making will make interesting watching.

Can the circle be squared? To be continued.