(This article was written by Derk Jan Eppink and appeared in Wynia’s Week. Met vooruitziende blik, strijdend tegen valse profeten: Frits Bolkestein (1933-2025))
In September 1991 I met Frits Bolkestein for the first time. He had just taken office as parliamentary leader of the VVD and I was starting as political editor at NRC/Handelsblad, a newspaper he once appreciated but later grumbled about a great deal. Only the column by mr. J.L. Heldring could he still stomach.
On 12 September of that year Bolkestein had published an article in De Volkskrant, the rival, on migration and minorities policy; a debate that would intensify over decades. He struck me as a stately man, almost mayoral, and formulated his sentences in a Dutch that had been put out with the bulk rubbish in the 1960s. He spoke like a book. I had never met a politician like that.
What was striking about Bolkestein was his versatility, his international orientation and his farsightedness. A distinctive figure in the history of postwar Netherlands. Most politicians in the corridors of the Tweede Kamer are busy with a dossier, or a fragment of one; or want to slip in one more little comment. The most enjoyable was Frans Weisglas (VVD), who once called me on a Friday morning with a quote. The conversation could not last too long, because he did not have enough small change (quarters) on him in the phone box.
In terms of knowledge Bolkestein was different because he had studied a great deal: mathematics, philosophy, Greek, law and economics at various universities. No other member of parliament could boast of that. His level of knowledge towered above others, who saw it as ‘arrogance’. Moreover Bolkestein had missed the turbulent 1960s in the Netherlands. He was working for Shell at the time in East Africa, El Salvador, London, Indonesia and Paris. The cultural revolution had changed the Netherlands.
Bolkestein wanted to combat the excesses of that spirit of the age, from within the Netherlands, and in 1977 made an attempt to become a member of the Tweede Kamer. That was not easy from the outside, because nobody knew him. He had to travel the length and breadth of the country to the VVD’s regional branches to show his face. His friend Peter Rauwerda led him around the party sections and also past a party grandee such as Hans Wiegel, who, however, did nothing for him. The relationship between Bolkestein and Wiegel was never smooth; the characters chafed. Bolkestein the intellectual; Wiegel the entertainer. Only in 1978 did Bolkestein enter the Tweede Kamer, after the second Den Uyl cabinet failed to materialise. It was precisely that cabinet he wanted to fight.
His political driving force was the struggle against communism. He was proudly an ‘anti-communiste primaire’. When Bolkestein was in Paris for Shell, he read the book ‘Chinese Shadows’ by the Belgian sinologist Pierre Ryckmans (the author’s pen name was Simon Leys) about the devastation of the Chinese cultural revolution. Bolkestein commuted between Paris and Amsterdam and preferred to read the book on the train. He denounced Western intellectuals who had great admiration for communist dictatorships such as those in China, the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe. And also politicians such as the mayor of Rotterdam, André van der Louw, who laid flowers on Mao’s grave on behalf of the city council for ‘his humane values’. The number of victims Mao claimed, estimated at between 40 and 70 million, was apparently a footnote in history. As soon as the subject was Western intellectuals, Bolkestein’s fury was ignited.
His broad historical knowledge and experience abroad gave Bolkestein the ‘farsightedness’ that was lacking elsewhere. When the Berlin Wall fell on 9 November 1989, he was proved right. The same happened with migration and minorities policy. He foresaw what a large influx of people from different cultures, some with a pattern of values different from that of the West, would lead to.
He also pointed to the consequences of Africa’s enormous demographic growth. These were subjects that made the intellectual and progressive public ‘uncomfortable’. Bolkestein once marched in a demonstration against discrimination and racism, while some demonstrators carried banners with the text: ‘Fuck de Bolk’. He was marching in a demonstration that was directed against him personally.
As VVD parliamentary leader, Bolkestein opposed the enlargement of NATO in an opinion article of 8 February 1997, once again in the Volkskrant, which acquired the nickname ‘Bolkskrant’. In a parliamentary debate on 4 March of that year he said: ‘Enlargement of NATO will not increase the stability of Europe, but reduce it. Enlargement of NATO will lead the Russians to increase their pressure on Ukraine. Dormant pro-Russian forces there will feel supported in seeking rapprochement with Russia’. What Bolkestein pointed to in 1997 has meanwhile happened.
Bolkestein then opposed the enlargement of the eurozone to include Italy, because he feared the criteria of the Stability Pact would be watered down. Under considerable pressure from the Kok cabinet and the guarantees it promised, he eventually had to give way. He lost the debate, but was proved right on the substance. The eurozone has meanwhile become a transfer zone.
He turned against the Iraq war in 2003 because it would lead to great chaos. The invasion only strengthened Iran. He was also against EU membership for Turkey, because that country is ‘too big, too poor and too different’. In 1999 the EU decided to make Turkey a candidate member state, but 25 years on nothing has been achieved. Here too: Bolkestein had foreseen it. Not as a clairvoyant with a crystal ball, but through thorough knowledge of history, politics and economics. A rare combination. As someone with first-hand experience in Third World countries, he had already seen the failure of development cooperation with his own eyes.
In 1995 I had left for Belgium to work for the Flemish newspaper De Standaard, which back then still had ‘Everything for Flanders, Flanders for Christ’ prominently on the front page. A new adventure, it seemed to me. When you leave the Binnenhof, contacts quickly fade. It is rather like leaving the stadium during the football match. But Bolkestein always stayed in touch; he invited me to dinners he held at home in Amsterdam. Together with his wife Femke he assembled a ‘mix of people’ who had something to say to one another. Frits kept the conversation at a high level and enjoyed it. He also invited me to lunch when he and Femke drove via Brussels to their country house in Ramousies in France. We would then meet in Hoeilaart on the Brussels ring.
On a Sunday afternoon in the summer of 1999 he called me. ‘Good afternoon Derk Jan, this is Bolkestein. As you may have heard, I am nominated to be appointed European Commissioner. Would you be prepared to work in my cabinet?’ I answered yes, whereupon Bolkestein concluded: ‘Good, that is settled then, I wish you a pleasant afternoon’. I had never had such a short job interview.
Working for Bolkestein was of course different from visiting him. I became part of the cabinet of the Commissioner responsible for the Internal Market and Taxation, in a group of 6 people: 3 Dutch and 3 other EU nationalities. I dealt with: contacts with the European Parliament, contacts with the Dutch media, liberalisation of the European postal market and speechwriting.
The first was difficult because Bolkestein was not a European federalist, and therefore an unbeliever. The second was full of ‘old sores’, because Bolkestein was ‘irritable’ the moment the domestic press was concerned. On the third, a majority of the member states and the European Parliament were against. And writing speeches was fascinating, casting his ideas in a style and context that made a substantive point without sending the cabinet of the President, Romano Prodi, up the wall.
Bolkestein’s management style was schematic, everything at the right moment. On the meeting table stood a small clock, and if in Frits’s view things were dragging on, he drummed his fingers on the table. He did the same during interviews: this has to end! Though he had more patience for the big British papers such as the Financial Times, and the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) was a regular in the house. Quite a few Dutch correspondents he described as ‘whiners’.
A European Commissioner has a cabinet to push his or her policy through the bureaucracy, and to protect the Commissioner against traps and intrigues from within the civil service. That means being constantly on guard in meetings and forming the right coalitions with the cabinets of other Commissioners who think along the same lines.
During his time as Commissioner, relations with the British government of Tony Blair were cordial, with the French government stiff and with the German Bundeskanzler bad. That was Gerhard Schröder, the Genosse der Bosse. The state of Lower Saxony has a decisive stake in Volkswagen (VW) and the Commission wanted to put an end to it. Schröder was also a former minister-president of Lower Saxony, and telephoned in a furious tone. In negotiations Bolkestein always stayed calm as a nobleman.
He also spoke his languages well. Fluent English, French, and in Spanish too he could manage. His German, however, was rather weaker, above all because as a perfectionist he wanted to have the cases exactly right. And then it sometimes stalls. He even took German lessons during his time at the Commission.
His relations with fellow Commissioners were quite good. After initial doubts, most found Bolkestein congenial and authoritative. He also went to breakfast with his colleagues in the Commission’s top restaurant, la Convivialité, because good personal relations are more important in European politics than in national politics.
Yet Bolkestein was overtaken by Dutch politics: the rise of Fortuyn! In 1998 Bolkestein put forward Hans Dijkstal as the new parliamentary leader, a friendly man incidentally whom I got to know during a parliamentary mission to Indonesia in 1994. Dijkstal, a former alderman in Wassenaar, was a cheerful type with whom you could go in any direction. Ideologically too. With Bolkestein’s departure the VVD shifted to the left and the party lost its ‘unique selling point’: migration.
Pim Fortuyn dived into the gap. Had Bolkestein appointed the wrong successor? In the official car with Frits and Femke I once asked him. Was Dijkstal the right man? Femke said immediately: ‘No, he cannot do it’. Frits: ‘But who should I have taken then? Hans was a member of parliament, a minister, a deputy prime minister. You would expect him to be able to be lead candidate’. The latter you only see after the appointment. If it does not work out, the party is stuck with it. The choice of successor was a disappointment for Bolkestein.
Pim dived into the gap and Bolkestein, who did appreciate Fortuyn as a person, wanted to do something. But what? At a certain moment he came into my little office, which he did from time to time, to test something out. He wanted to pin the label ‘pleefiguur’ (a laughing stock, literally a lavatory figure) on Fortuyn: Pim as Dutch prime minister in Europe would amount to that. I was not convinced and said that Pim as the ‘underdog’ enjoys the sympathy of many voters. The term ‘pleefiguur’ would make him even more of an underdog and strengthen him electorally. Weeks went by and I hoped the term had vanished. Suddenly Frits came out with it; a few days later, on 6 May 2002, Pim was murdered. That came back like a boomerang.
Bolkestein as a negotiator was not easy. The moment he took a position, he was almost impossible to move. The Latin approach was not for him. I noticed that in the negotiations on the liberalisation of the postal market. Digital traffic would displace letter traffic and the postal sector would only have a future as a modern logistics business. That trajectory had to be adjusted in the Directive so that companies could invest. But the mystique of the postman was still alive. Certainly among their trade unions.
It was difficult to move Frits; it was always ‘not fast enough’. Under the Belgian EU presidency it proved possible to build a bridge to Southern Europe and an agreement came out of the Council of Ministers. Frits preferred an Anglo-Saxon approach.
In the European Parliament Bolkestein had a good many enemies, but that changed gradually. A great many lunches were needed for that. He enjoyed Strasbourg, contrary to what I expected. We went to the European Parliament together and Frits felt free there. He also loosened up there. In the evening he wanted to eat well, in a restaurant right next to the European Parliament. He told jokes, about Dutch politics too. Ultimately it was the Tweede Kamer that formed him politically. The relationship with Hans Wiegel, Ed Nijpels, ‘Nickel Neelie’. All three open to improvement, to put it euphemistically.
In the end he chose not to continue his period at the European Commission. Femke could not find her footing in Brussels and was very attached to Amsterdam and her friends there. They had an apartment on the Louizalaan in Brussels. At 9.00 he arrived at work by official car and at 19.00 he went back. He did not have much company, and on an extension he would have to keep commuting for another 5 years. He cut the knot: I am stopping. The members of the cabinet all found a place. I moved to the cabinet of the Estonian European Commissioner Siim Kallas, in order to look at Europe from the perspective of Eastern Europe for a change. Yet another experience.
Bolkestein did put one more European directive to his name: the Bolkestein Directive on the liberalisation of the European services market. Service providers from Eastern Europe were allowed to provide services in Western Europe, under the conditions prevailing in Eastern Europe. The directive led to a storm of protest in the streets of Brussels, with the ‘Polish plumber’ as the bogeyman. Trade unions took action against Bolkestein, but he had already left, because the directive was approved by the Commission at the end of his term, and later adjusted somewhat. Twenty years on, however, there is a great shortage of plumbers in Western Europe, whether from Poland or other Eastern European member states. Plumbers, bricklayers, construction workers: they are indispensable as ‘labour migrants’.
Frits stayed active, he wrote books and published articles. In 2011 he presented his book ‘De Intellectuele Verleiding’, which was to become his opus magnum. Bolkestein warned against new ideologies with totalitarian traits that would once again seduce Western intellectuals. A version also appeared in English; The Intellectual Temptation: Dangerous Ideas in Politics.
On 27 June 2013 there was a symposium in the Amstelkerk on the occasion of his 80th birthday, a sort of Bolkestein high mass. Friend and foe came with contributions, among them his former opponent Jan Pronk. Bolkestein saw the symposium as his formal farewell to the great debate, although he continued to write columns, such as on climate policy, in which he discerned a glorified planned economy. In Elsevier Weekblad of 12 January 2017 he called himself a ‘climate realist’. Intellectuals, in his view, allowed themselves to be seduced by ‘prophecies of doom’.
I continued to visit Bolkestein regularly in his workspace on the Amstel, right by the Amstel Hotel. In that apartment he wrote, received guests, and even organised dinners as he used to do at home. For lunches he liked to go to ‘Bar Lempicka’ on the corner of the Amstel and the Sarphatistraat. That became a bit too noisy. After that we went to the Amstel Hotel, preferably on the terrace by the Amstel. But Frits was becoming less mobile. He walked with a stick but wanted to stay independent as much as possible.
Eventually Frits and Femke ended up in the Rosa Spier Huis in Laren. I visited him there too, in the middle of the woods of Het Gooi. We sometimes talked there for several hours. They would tell, for instance, where each of them had been standing when Winston Churchill made his triumphal procession through Amsterdam on 8 May 1946. It was always fascinating, over a cup of tea and a biscuit.
Gradually, however, things went less well, at the end in leaps. Last Thursday I was there on a visit. It was clearly not going well. On leaving, Frits wanted to sit in his wheelchair by the window in the sunshine. There he sat contentedly, in the warmth and the light of the sun. His body could go no further, but the name Frits Bolkestein lives on as a monument in Dutch politics.
Derk Jan Eppink is a Distinguished Fellow (Honorary) at the Gold Institute for International Strategy, a Washington D.C.-based foreign policy and defense think tank.
