The World Cup in Qatar is a contaminated tournament. We should not legalize this afterwards by turning it into an administrative party.
Dutch politics has dealt with controversial sports tournaments in a fixed pattern for years.
Step one: the House of Representatives is concerned about the human rights situation in the host country and says it does not consider it wise if the Netherlands appears there with a great display of administrative flag.
Step two: the prime minister, whether his name is Balkenende or Rutte, then states that he would like to turn the situation around: suppose we don’t send administrators, then they can’t talk about human rights on the spot, and then they know in Russia /China/Qatar not even that we are concerned about that in the Netherlands.
Step three: In view of the precarious political situation, the cabinet will keep in the middle as long as possible who exactly will be delegated, in the hope of being able to join in with what other, larger countries are doing. And of course in the expectation that the debate on this will calm down as soon as the ball rolls.
For the time being, the debate about the delegation to Qatar has completely adhered to the script. The Chamber was there early, in February 2021, with the call not to send a delegation: during the preparations so many people have died and so many workers have become victims of exploitation that it is not appropriate to stand there cheering on behalf of the country. .
That is indeed undisputed and that is why King Willem-Alexander certainly has no business there. The risk of uncomfortable situations is too great. He will hopefully realize that as the photos of his get-together with President Putin at the 2014 Olympics are still remembered.
The same goes for Prime Minister Rutte. He is not an enthusiast, there are so many sports tournaments that he does not attend. Going would be a completely unnecessary statement of support to the organizers.
The question remains whether there is someone must act on behalf of the government. The government argues that it may not be wise to be the only country to completely default at a time when we boycott Russian gas, no longer want to drill Groningen gas and Qatar is one of the few life buoys for short-term energy supply. to keep up to date. The gas has to come from somewhere.
That is not a nonsensical argument, and we do not have to suddenly cut diplomatic ties with Qatar, but this debate is about a football party, a tournament that was organized under very dubious circumstances. We don’t have to legalize that retroactively with ministers cheering in the stands.
And if Prime Minister Rutte really does not want to make a matter of principle out of fear that it will turn into a damaging diplomatic row, he can always fall back on the example of his distant predecessor Van Agt – the last prime minister who did make a statement and nobody in 1978. delegated to the Argentina of dictator Jorge Videla. However, Van Agt did not mince words and only let it be known that he was ‘too busy’ with domestic political problems. In the case of Mark Rutte, that is a very credible excuse.
The position of the newspaper is expressed in the Volkskrant Commentaar. It is created after a discussion between the commentators and the editor-in-chief.