(This article was written by Derk Jan Eppink and Johannes Vervloed and appeared in Wynia’s Week. Eindelijk een breuk met de stoffige erfenis van Jan Pronk)
The Dutch tradition of an idealistic foreign policy, with the emphasis on grand vistas, humanitarian inspiration and development aid, appears to have come to an end. In a letter sent to the House of Representatives on 4 April, the Schoof cabinet comes with a new foundation: the Dutch interest. That is a caesura of the first order.
A telling detail: although the cabinet also devoted a news release to the change of course, the letter to parliament itself was harder to trace online. Was the reversal not supposed to come across as too drastic?
The ‘national interest’ is taken for granted everywhere in the world, but in our country it was for a long time a dirty word. Thirty years ago, in the spring of 1995, the then VVD parliamentary leader Frits Bolkestein launched the proposition that our foreign policy ought to be ‘grafted’ onto it. At the time that was something entirely new. In Bolkestein’s words: ‘Never does a politician pride himself on having fought like a lion for the Dutch interest at a summit conference. If Prime Minister Kok were to give a television talk against the background of the national flag, he would be jeered at.’
After thirty years the ‘Dutch interest’ now seems to have moored after all. The cabinet’s letter is signed by the ministers of Foreign Affairs (Casper Veldkamp, NSC), Defence (Ruben Brekelmans, VVD), Foreign Trade and Development Aid (Reinette Klever, PVV) and Justice and Security (David van Weel, VVD). It shows the wish to conduct an integrated foreign policy.
That was very different, in particular in the years 1973-2020. In the first half of that period the PvdA figurehead Jan Pronk was minister for Development Cooperation in three cabinets (Den Uyl, Lubbers III and Kok I). He did not coordinate his policy with colleagues. There was no question of an all-embracing foreign policy in which development cooperation too serves the national interest. On the contrary, that was seen as ‘unethical’. With fatal consequences.
Not only were opportunities missed for Dutch business in the so-called concentration countries for development cooperation. Dutch aid was even no longer welcome. This in contrast to the French, who left not a penny unused to secure contracts for French business with development aid. Pronk involved himself so intensively with human rights in Indonesia that President Suharto refused Dutch aid.
It was not only the ministers of Economic Affairs, Transport and Water Management and Development Cooperation who often could not get along. Between Foreign Affairs and Justice too there was no contact, let alone cooperation. Thus the social security treaty (transfer of child benefit and all sorts of other allowances) with Morocco was not used to move the country to take back rejected asylum seekers with a Moroccan passport. That too was supposedly ‘unethical’.
At the Dutch embassies there was no cooperation either. The representatives of the various ministries, transport counsellors, agricultural counsellors, defence, trade and other technical attachés, received their own instructions and also reported only to their own department. Formally the ambassador was responsible for everything the embassy did. In practice that was a sham.
The letter to parliament of 4 April is mainly about Dutch missions and operations abroad, with as a new basic rule: ‘In every deployment the Dutch interest is leading’. In the past that was quite often emotion, and that is often a bad counsellor. Let us remember the fall of the Srebrenica enclave, now almost thirty years ago. The presence of the Dutch Dutchbat could not prevent more than 8,000 Muslim men from being murdered in 1995. The operation was a mission impossible, fed by emotions, both in politics and in the media. The Netherlands ‘had’ to intervene in the bloody civil war in the former Yugoslavia; the commentators of de Volkskrant and NRC demanded it almost daily.
The angle of the letter to parliament is a coordinated ‘realistic foreign policy’ with an eye to the security interests of the Netherlands. It is striking that the deployment in Ukraine is parked, while this contains a large chunk of the defence capacity, with a growing budget. The Netherlands anticipates a possible contribution to ‘security guarantees’ for Ukraine, is studying ‘every serious option’ and ‘rules nothing out’. The vision on this large theme remains hazy.
Anyone who looks at the world map can identify two direct security interests for the Netherlands: free passage in the Red Sea and illegal immigration. Blocking that passage directly affects Dutch economic interests. But fighting the culprits, the Houthis in Yemen (an extension of Iran), is left almost entirely to the Americans. While more than 40 percent of the traffic is destined for Europe, and only 4 percent for the US. A leaked discussion in the White House recently showed that senior staff members of President Trump are fed up with the European attitude.
The Americans have a point. They do the ‘heavy lifting’. The Netherlands at least does something, albeit at a safe distance. It is considering the ‘possible deployment of a naval vessel’ and sent five staff members to the Western ‘Combined Allied Forces’ in Bahrain. In that case one sends, pardonnez-moi le mot, ‘meeting admirals’ but no firepower.
But it can be worse. Germany, the export country par excellence, is not taking part and neither is Denmark, even though the Danish company Maersk was until recently the largest container shipping line in the world. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are likewise clearing off, out of fear of attacks by the Houthis.
In the Red Sea there is a direct economic national interest for the Netherlands. The cabinet calls the meetings in Bahrain ‘the sending of a message’. The Netherlands is formally part of the coalition. Can it not do more than issue the message ‘we are here’?
With illegal migration the same argument applies. The Netherlands tries to counter illegal immigration and drug smuggling through contacts with coastal states in West Africa. Very useful, but that effort is qualified as ‘a foot in the door’. More ambition is not forbidden. In the Sahel the Netherlands was active between 2013 and 2023 in the UN mission Minusma in Mali, at France’s request. But the French were chased out of French-speaking Africa by radical Islamic insurgents. The mission in Mali failed.
The next frontier is the Mediterranean. Is it possible for the Dutch navy to patrol the Mediterranean together with Italian colleagues, at the EU’s external border, in order to block the passage of illegal migrants? A ‘foot in the door’ policy is insufficient. Libya is a transit zone and illegal migration to Europe has to be stopped there already.
Most missions revolve around giving a ‘signal’ because they become smaller the further from home they are deployed. The mission in the Pacific touches a Dutch interest, because it concerns a growth region with increasing world trade. A small mission, by contrast, is mainly showing the flag, ‘putting out a message’ and gathering information. Useful but thin. In Bosnia there may be a larger mission with an infantry company, with a view to stability in the Western Balkans, in 2015 an important (and totally porous) immigration route. The missions in Armenia, Moldova and Georgia are certainly necessary, as small democracies in the region. Just like Israel in the Middle East; an aspect that is too little recognised.
In any case: from a political point of view the cabinet’s letter to parliament is a great leap forward. Hopefully the intentions will actually be converted into effective and workable policy.
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.