On the day the hearings of the Groningen Committee of Inquiry started, a think tank was launched a little further down the road. Kind of like a candle burning on both sides. The Committee of Inquiry examines government failures in the years behind us, the think tank wants to form a ‘constructive counter-force’ that prevents such failures in the future. Between those two fires, the confusion of the present rages, in which mistrust and short-sightedness compete for precedence.
The New Think Tank is the name. Which suggests that there are also old think tanks. The wonderful thing about The Hague’s politics is that it is virtually without a think tank. The parties have their scientific offices, which are often in a declining condition, which sometimes (the Party for the Animals) only fulfill a PR function. In addition, there is a system of advisory councils and supporting institutes – RIVM, SCP, Court of Audit, WRR, PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, Central Planning Bureau and others – that are directly linked to the government, usually employees in government services.
The think tanks that exist – Clingendael, The Hague Center for Strategic Studies by Rob de Wijk, and until recently also the Institute for Global Justice – are mainly concerned with international developments.
The New Think Tank originated from the Social Christian Democracy Foundation, a group of critical CDA members that identify with Pieter Omtzigt’s ideas. Think Tank Secretary Henriëtte van Hedel was active there, as was Think Tank Director Bart-Jan Heine. The Think Tank wants to aim wider. At the launch in Nieuwspoort, Diederik Boomsma, CDA councilor in Amsterdam, will speak, but also René Cuperus, who works for Clingendael and has a past at the Wiardi Beckman Foundation of the PvdA. NRCcolumnist and microbiologist Rosanne Hertzberger often voted VVD, but converted to the ChristenUnie.
So a think tank of what is called the broad middle in The Hague: parties that these days have difficulty retaining their natural supporters. The concern about that is echoed. Director Heine uses half of his speech to name all the crises that plague the Netherlands. “There is a systemic crisis that needs to be tackled from the middle,” he says. “That center is too quiet.” He speaks of healthy patriotism, of moderation and truthfulness, of a caring government.
Boomsma notes that ‘complexity is an alibi to depoliticise decisions’. And Hertzberger believes that a ‘wonderful malleable science’ has taken the place of God. To demonstrate the flaws of science, she lists a series of erroneous research results, without mentioning that those errors, in turn, have been corrected by scientific research. Conclusion: ‘Science must be pushed back to the edges of the political domain.’ Cuperus observes that populist parties are growing in countries with a shrinking welfare state. Countries such as the Netherlands, in other words, where the distance between rich and poor, city and country is growing. ‘The political center threatens to implode.’
In the meantime, one politician has reported to the launch. He looks on approvingly from the back of the room. Pieter Omtzigt, the man who is thought to be able to revitalize the political center on his own. In his book A new social contract he denounces policies that blindly focus on models and educators, and advocates the creation of… think tanks. ‘It is not without reason that neighboring countries have much larger think tanks at both government and political parties. The Netherlands still has an important step to take here.’
Does that look nice. The think tank as a missing link for the man who wants to give the middle ground underfoot. Certainly if that think tank, like him, advocates a new social contract. For example, his movement is increasingly taking shape after the establishment of a Support Fund. But the think anchors are not that far yet. Boomsma assures that he is still an urban CDA member, Cuperus wants to encompass the broad middle, if necessary with an edge of SP. And Omtzigt says, a little outraged, that he didn’t have to justify why he wanted to experience this launch.
A mid-engine for politics, that’s what De Nieuwe Denktank wants to be. Just before that, I had seen the Groningen horse farmer Sijbrand Nijhoff, who concluded his interrogation at the committee of inquiry by showing a photo with earthquake cracks. ‘These cracks are also in the Groningen people.’
How to prevent these cracks in the future is something the think tank is getting its hands full on.