Charlemagne: Dutch distemper

A surprisingly sceptical Netherlands has just taken over the European Union presidency

WHATEVER happened to the good old reliable Dutch? Where the British tend to agonise and the French to preen, the Dutch have always epitomised a pragmatic, unfussy embrace of the European project. In the 1950s the Netherlands was one of the six founders of what has since become the 25-country European Union. In the 1990s two treaties that pointed towards “ever closer union” were signed in the Netherlands, after successful Dutch EU presidencies. The Maastricht treaty of 1992 laid the groundwork for a single currency and a common foreign policy; the Amsterdam treaty of 1997 deepened integration in judicial and monetary matters.

Another Dutch half-yearly presidency has just begun, but this time there will be no push for deeper integration. For there has been a marked change of mood in the Netherlands. Ben Bot, the Dutch foreign minister, recently gave a speech at Humboldt University in which he argued that the EU had developed too fast for many of its citizens and that a crisis of legitimacy was causing ordinary people to worry about a “loss of national identity” and to yearn for “the familiar old world, the nation state”. He went on to call for some powers to be repatriated from Brussels to national capitals, including social policy and some parts of farm and regional support.

Admittedly, the Dutch government has endorsed the draft EU constitution, but it has also made clear that it should bring to a halt the process of integration for some time to come. The Dutch programme for its presidency is almost British in its scepticism. When Jan Peter Balkenende, the Dutch prime minister, visits the European Parliament next week, he will focus on reducing bureaucracy and sparking economic growth. A stress on practical matters at the expense of new visions makes sense, given that the EU has just drawn up the new constitution. But the Dutch programme reflects more than an accident of timing.

The new mood in the Netherlands can be traced in large part to the political revolution sparked by Pim Fortuyn, an anti-establishment populist, whose combination of anti-immigration rhetoric and flamboyant social and economic liberalism helped to turn Dutch politics upside down in 2002. Mr Fortuyn was assassinated, and the political party he founded has since all but collapsed. But his legacy has been profound. In the post-Fortuyn era, politicians have become more willing to question the old Dutch certainties on everything, from the virtues of multiculturalism to the merits of consensus management.

Fortuynism fits too with a more sceptical attitude to the EU, one that is shared to some degree even by the Dutch European commissioner, Frits Bolkestein. The idea that Brussels is a cesspool of corruption has almost become an orthodoxy in the Netherlands. A “clean-up Brussels” party, led by a Dutch former EU auditor, did well in last month's European elections. And the new scepticism has also made it politically acceptable for the Dutch to complain long and loud about the fact that they are the biggest net contributor per head to the EU budget. Mr Balkenende says that the average Dutch citizen pays, net, six times as much into the EU budget as the average Frenchman, even though the two countries are equally rich. His finance minister, Gerrit Zalm, cites Margaret Thatcher as an inspiration in fighting for a better financial deal. The late Pim Fortuyn used to say the same.

Dutch grumpiness with Europe has been greatly aggravated by arguments over the euro and Iraq. The Dutch exchanged their ancient currency, the guilder, for the euro with scarcely a murmur of protest. But the sight of Germany and France flouting the budget-deficit ceilings of 3% of GDP supposedly fixed by the stability and growth pact, even as a recession-hit Netherlands struggled to stay beneath them, has sparked Calvinist outrage. The Dutch have been trying, largely in vain, to tighten the rules. The European Court of Justice ruling in favour of the European Commission on July 13th may give the Dutch a new opportunity to assert the case for fiscal austerity, even though they are themselves in danger of going above 3%. But their irritation with Germany and France, fellow founders of the EU, goes wider. The French and Germans led the European camp opposed to the Iraq war, but the Dutch lined up with the British and the Americans. Some 1,300 Dutch troops are now serving in Iraq.

Until a few years ago, there would have been little doubt that, in any fundamental debate about the future of Europe, the Netherlands would line up with France and Germany. But the new mood in the Netherlands make this far less certain today. One senior EU official comments that “if the EU splits and Britain leaves, it will be a particular disaster for the Dutch. Half of the country will want to go with Britain, the other half will want to go with France and Germany.”

Might the Netherlands say no?

The Dutch might not be victims of an EU crisis: they could precipitate one. For the Netherlands is one of ten countries that have promised to hold referendums on the new constitution. A Dutch no would in some ways mark a more profound crisis for the EU than a British or Polish rejection. To be sure, Britain is a big country, but it has always been part of the awkward squad. If the sensible Dutch start turning up their noses at an EU treaty, it would be final confirmation that Euroscepticism has spread from the Anglo-Nordic fringe to the very heart of the Union.

Dutch ministers now reckon that their vote is likely to be held in spring 2005, and they seem genuinely optimistic that it will be won. Mr Bot points out that all the main political parties have endorsed the new constitution, and that the press has been positive. But the same factors were in place both when Sweden voted on the euro and before Denmark's first referendum on Maastricht - and yet in both cases the no camp won the day. Could it happen in the Netherlands? In the post-Fortuyn age, nothing can be taken for granted.

Commentary feature says that a surprisingly sceptical Netherlands has just taken over the EU Presidency.