Dutch MEP to contest domestic elections

Date: 05/12/02

By David Cronin

MEP Lousewies van der Laan is to stand in the Netherlands' general election on 22 January.

The 36-year-old will find out today (5 December) how high she is on the electoral list for her party, D66, which is affiliated to the European Parliament's Liberal group. This follows a ballot of the party's members, who decide the pecking order for the candidates fielded.

If elected, van der Laan intends to leave her seat in Brussels but says she will regret doing so. 'I love my work and in all modesty I think the small D66 grouping here has made a large impact on things,' she said. The party's only other MEP is Bob van den Bos.

Van der Laan is alone among the 31 Dutch MEPs in opting to contest the election, caused by the collapse of Jan Peter Balkenende's government. Her decision to enter domestic politics, she said, was based on frustration with recent political developments in the Netherlands.

In particular, she is concerned at how its right-leaning government has been perceived as hostile to EU enlargement.

'The last government lost our country's triple-A rated reputation,' she explained. 'It was seen as against enlargement because it is too expensive. The Netherlands lost its reputation for being stable and pro-European.'

Although opinion polls indicate D66 may win just seven seats in the national parliament, some pundits predict it could hold the balance of power.

The polls also suggest the next government will feature the Christian Democrats in a coalition with Labour or the 'conservative' Liberals (which is a different party from D66), but that neither alliance would be able to provide the necessary majority.

Van der Laan makes no secret of her ambition to become a minister and eventually return to Brussels as a commissioner. 'I wouldn't mind being the EU president,' she remarked, only half jokingly. Her party's key demands will be to cease cutbacks in education and to reinforce Dutch support for EU integration and environmental protection.

Before her election to the European Parliament in 1999, US-educated van der Laan was a spokeswoman for Hans van den Broek, who held the external relations portfolio in the previous European Commission. She cites the Parliament's decision to post committee documents on the internet as one of her major achievements. She persuaded the Parliament's authorities to take this step after publishing the material on her own website over a seven-month period.

As well as being a strong supporter of gay rights, van der Laan has been highly critical of Israeli human rights abuses in the occupied territories. This led to an accusation by Harry Kney-Tal, Israel's then EU ambassador, that she had failed to condemn suicide bombings earlier this year - a charge she firmly rebuts.

However, van der Laan revealed this week that the ambassador sent her the 'sweetest letter of congratulations' when she was married during the summer.

MEP Lousewies van der Laan is to stand in the Netherlands' general election on 22 January 2003.