‘New coalition must make the Netherlands a normal country again’

Mark Rutte has been playing chess on two boards for almost a year and a half: Prime Minister of the Netherlands and candidate CEO of NATO. “If he becomes NATO chief, he must immediately resign as outgoing Prime Minister of the Netherlands,” says Syp Wynia. ‘Because the Netherlands is not NATO and neither is the other way around. The appearance of a conflict of interest has already gone far too far. It is only normal that the Netherlands supports Ukraine, but why has the Netherlands been a ‘driving force’ with many billions in arms aid to Ukraine since the beginning of 2022? That is not justified anywhere.’

Rutte conflicts interests

Rutte, meanwhile, flatly and indignantly denies that Dutch generosity towards Ukraine has anything to do with his application tour for NATO. Pim van Galen: ‘If Rutte acts indignant, you have to pay attention.’

This video conversation between PIM VAN GALEN and SYP WYNIA for WWTV is also available as a podcast. Look here

Close to the wind

Meanwhile, the formation is not going well. Wynia does have some advice for the forming parties. ‘Change course. Sail close to the wind. Dutch politicians always want to be the best boy in class. Nothing ever happens that a judge could be grumpy about. We must always be a guiding country, a leader with climate, a leading country with nitrogen, nicer than others about asylum. If we stop with this vanity and put Dutch citizens first, a coalition agreement should be possible quickly.’

These rules of thumb also work for budget policy and asylum, the most important points of contention, says Wynia. ‘If we do not feel the need to impose budget policy on others, we do not have to do so ourselves. If we become a normal European country with rules for asylum seekers, they will also have less reason to come here. And most of those Dutch exceptions can be abolished tomorrow. That is more useful than the utopia that you could change treaties.’

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