Will the Netherlands accept Ukraine as an EU candidate? “We are not against. But it is also not the case that we are automatically ahead,” Prime Minister Mark Rutte (VVD) said on Friday. Foreign Minister Wopke Hoekstra (CDA) said it the next day in NRC thus: “Refusing a friend in need is, by definition, complicated.” It was their way of saying: This is a brain teaser.
Up to now there has been praise for the diligence with which the Netherlands rallied behind arms supplies and sanctions. But in the discussion about EU membership, the Netherlands runs the risk of losing that credit again. Foreign media always point to the Netherlands as one of the biggest troublemakers. Dutch diplomacy is facing a tough week. There will be an EU summit on this subject at the end of next week. This means that the Netherlands still has a week to determine a position that can be sold politically within its borders and at the same time does not arouse too much international resentment.
No EU country, including the Netherlands, wants to go down in history as the country that, at a sensitive moment in the war, denied Ukraine the hope of a European future. Making Ukraine a NATO member is out of the question, but neither is offering Ukraine any prospect of EU membership: no one wants to give this to Putin as a present. So the question is: what kind of view do you offer? It is best to become concrete or become ‘view of the possibility of a perspective’, in the words of a senior diplomat.
‘Typically Dutch’
The fact that the Netherlands now threatens to become the bogeyman is “typically Dutch”, says Rem Korteweg of think tank Clingendael. Lack of tact has often caused the Netherlands problems. At the start of the corona crisis, Hoekstra stood out in a negative sense as Finance Minister, by stating that European solidarity cannot be taken for granted, even during an unexpected and deadly pandemic.
According to Korteweg, Emmanuel Macron shows how it should be done. The French president recently suggested that Ukraine and other newcomers could join a ‘European political community’, a kind of parallel EU yet to be created. Korteweg: “So Macron also clearly has objections, but immediately puts a constructive perspective on them. The Netherlands does not do that, and that is why we are in the dark, and Macron is not.”
For the time being, the Netherlands mainly says that favoring Ukraine is unwise. Because what do you say to countries that are already in the waiting room, such as North Macedonia and Albania? They had to make painful reforms there. “The Netherlands is formally right,” says Korteweg. “The reality is: we have to do something with Ukraine. The struggle it is now waging has placed a huge morale on the EU.”
The Netherlands may then adopt a substantive position in Brussels. In The Hague itself, there is another factor: the fear of political turmoil. Since the referenda on the European Constitution (2005) and on the Association Agreement with Ukraine (2016), this fear has run deep, far into the top of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Although holding a referendum has become more difficult, Rutte “always looks over his right shoulder”, it sounds. There is a great fear that parties more right-wing than the VVD will be able to electorally exploit any Dutch concessions in Brussels.
The Netherlands has never been enthusiastic about expansions. In the run-up to the big bang in 2004, when the EU gained ten members in one go, there was plenty of muttering. About migrant workers. Dilution of own voting weight. The Polish claim to agricultural funds. And oh yes, food safety left a lot to be desired, said the then VVD leader Gerrit Zalm.
For several years now, the adage has been: strict but fair. Prospective members are being turned inside out more than ever, but if they demonstrably deliver, they can count on Dutch support. The bar is set higher and it should be, in the opinion of the Netherlands. The fear that countries, once they have entered, will no longer abide by the rules of the game has only grown: in recent years Poland and Hungary flouted their own, and thus the European rule of law, with attacks on judges, officials , journalists and political opponents.
There were also problems with the rule of law and corruption in Ukraine before the war. And they wouldn’t be there anymore? Yes, they say in The Hague: Europe must become more geopolitical, dare to make dirty hands and big gestures, but it must not take hasty decisions that weaken the EU, which is built on rules and procedures.
A version of this article also appeared in the newspaper of June 16, 2022