NOS News•today, 3:29 PM
In less than a month, on June 6, Dutch people will be able to go to the polls for the European Parliament elections. The Voting Guide was launched today to help people make a choice. Dutch party leaders also completed this today, in order to increase their name recognition.
Because the name recognition of Dutch MEPs is not doing well in these elections. A poll by I&O Research, published in the civil servants magazine Domestic Governance, showed more than a month ago that 71 percent of voters could not name a single party leader. In 2019 that was still a quarter. At the time, many Dutch people could still remember the name of then European Commissioner Frans Timmermans, now the GroenLinks-PvdA faction leader in the House.
Bas Eickhout of GroenLinks is currently the best-known Dutchman; 11 percent of respondents know him. But Anja Hazekamp, who has been a member of the European Parliament for the Party for the Animals for ten years, is a stranger to almost all Dutch people; only 2 percent know her.
‘Europe needed more than ever’
58 percent of Dutch voters also say they do not know to which faction in the European Parliament the Dutch parties belong. The rest say they know, but are sometimes still wrong.
According to outgoing Minister of the Interior De Jonge, the elections are “not yet sufficiently relevant” in society. “Pretty crazy,” he thinks. “We need Europe more than ever at this time.”
According to Christian Union party leader Anja Haga, herself number three on the list of the best-known Dutch MEPs, it is important that something is done about brand awareness: “The work in the European Parliament is already far away and abstract. If you don’t already know which people are there, the willingness to go to the polls is not that high.”
Gerrie Elfrink of the SP achieved a 100 percent score on the Stemwijzer: “No, I am not surprised, because I know my party and the program.” He acknowledges that the elections are not yet really happening in the Netherlands: “But that is important. Europe determines a lot in our lives, such as the prices in the supermarket and the approach to migration and exploitation of migrant workers.”
‘Unknownness is not good for democracy’
Gerben-Jan Gerbrandy of D66 says that he is only sometimes recognized in his hometown of The Hague. “But in general, the candidates for the European elections are relatively unknown. That is not good for democracy, because it is based on trust. People need to know who they are giving that trust to.”
VVD party leader Malik Azmani is second on the list of the best-known Dutch MEPs with 10 percent. But he is not satisfied with that percentage: “It’s my job to show myself. That’s what I’m going to do, you can see me all over the country in the near future.”
More about the European elections in this special:
