Cabinet wants advisory committee to assess career steps of former ministers for conflicts of interest

The outgoing cabinet sent a bill to the House on Friday in which the rules on subsequent positions of ministers are clarified and tightened. The most important innovation in the bill is that ministers must consult an advisory board if they take on a new position within two years after their departure. The council can then make three statements: ‘no objection’, ‘acceptable under further conditions’ or ‘unacceptable due to (too great a risk of) conflict of interest’.

If the former minister accepts the position, the advice will be made public. This is not a ban, but the proposed legislation should help prevent questionable career moves by former ministers by at least making it clear to what extent their new position overlaps with their old position.

It often happens that a tension arises between the old and new functions of a minister. This is not surprising, because some of the ministers already had a position in the private sector before joining the cabinet. They are “of great added value in a cabinet,” writes outgoing Minister of the Interior Hugo de Jonge (CDA). If they cannot return to their old sector after their political career, this could discourage professionals from choosing a career in politics. De Jonge writes: “We also want expert people who currently work in sectors outside the government to continue to opt for the office of minister or state secretary.” So, De Jonge believes, it must be “clear how they can take another career step after their term of office, in a careful manner without risks of conflict of interest.”

Van Nieuwenhuizen in disrepute

The most current case of a minister who made a controversial career move after a ministerial position is that of Cora van Nieuwenhuizen (VVD), Minister of Infrastructure and Water Management between 2017 and 2021. In that position she attended meetings of the ministerial Climate and Energy Committee. At that moment she already knew that after her ministership she would work at Energie-Nederland, a trade association and important lobby club for large energy companies such as GasTerra, BP and Shell. When this became apparent from research by the NOS and News hour Van Nieuwenhuizen continued to maintain that there was no conflict of interest of any kind.

MPs Laurens Dassen (Volt) and Pieter Omtzigt (NSC, then CDA) submitted an initiative memorandum in 2022 to prevent cases like Van Nieuwenhuizen’s in the future. Van Nieuwenhuizen was mentioned eighteen times in their memorandum.

There are currently already anti-lobbying rules for ministers who leave the cabinet, which are legally laid down in the bill. Ministers may not have any business contact with civil servants with whom they dealt as ministers for two years after their departure if they started working in the private or semi-public sector. In addition, former ministers may not work for or accept paid assignments from the ministry of which they were ministers during that period.

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