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The trust between PM Balkenende (CDA), his vice-PM and Minister of Finance Wouter Bos (PvdA) and Minister of Foreign Affairs Maxime Verhagen (CDA) was distorted so badly that the parties could no longer form a working coalition. The main issue the Cabinet seems to have fallen over was the Dutch presence in Uruzgan, which was scheduled to end in December 2010. It had already been prolonged once. The PvdA was mainly opposed to prolong the mission once more.
A very odd event, finally causing the relations between the governing parties to explode, was a fax sent by the NATO asking the Cabinet for its position on the mission. This fax does not come when you have declined. Only several hours before the NATO contacted the Dutch Government, vice-PM Bos had already made a statement saying that the Dutch would retreat from Afghanistan following the set course of action. Members of Parliament for the PvdA now state that CDA cabinet ministers have somehow worked on their own initiative.
Balkenende has been one of the longest governing PMs in Dutch history, presiding over four coalitions, starting in 2002. None of his coalition Cabinets has completed the four-year term. This is descriptive of the social and political situation in the Netherlands since 2002. The last of his Cabinets fell in 2006 because of the hard line Minister of Immigrant Affairs Verdonk drew. Verdonk’s plan to take away the Dutch citizenship of well-known political thinker Ayaan Hirsi Ali was the final drop.
In January this year another war almost caused Balkenende IV to resign. The Commission-Davids presented a report on the Dutch political support for the war in Iraq in 2003. The commission concluded, like Parliamentary commissions elsewhere, that the Iraq War was in violation of international law. The PvdA, one of the current coalition partners, thought that the reaction of PM Balkenende, who was then also Prime Minister, was not adequate. This political conflict was finally silently solved. In combination with the lax Government action at the height of the financial crisis in 2009, the Afghan mission and the lack of leadership shown by PM Balkenende in many other instances proved fatal.
The events in The Hague are also broadly reported by the German media. A political debate on the German mission in Afghanistan has been ongoing for several months. Next week, the Bundestag will have to take a definite decision. A coalition of CDU/CSU (Christian-Democrats) and SPD (Social-Democrats), similar to the Dutch Cabinet, is currently in office. There are quite some other similarities. Both the German and the Dutch Parliaments were informed that the mission of the respective armies was aiding the rebuilding of Afghani society. However, and this may seem very obvious to us now, the situation in the Afghani provinces where German and Dutch troops (totalling at approximately 7,000) is now officially called ‘an armed conflict.’
But what next? For now, CDA and ChristenUnie will form a temporary Cabinet without the power to decide upon any crucial issues to govern the Netherlands. They have the mandate to prepare the elections and maintain the country’s status quo. The Netherlands have lost credibility in the international community concerning the mission in Afghanistan. The three governing parties have entirely lost the faith of their electorate.
The best-known current Dutch politician for a UK audience is probably Geert Wilders. Die Zeit heads that the fall of the Cabinet is ‘a victory for populists.’ And this is precisely the case. A majority of the Dutch electorate seems to be through with the large moderate parties, such as CDA and PvdA, and has started looking at Wilders’ PVV (Freedom Party) and the similar Trots op Nederland-party (Proud of the Netherlands) as serious alternatives. However, also small centre-left parties, like the Greens, Liberal Democrats, Socialists, and even the Party for the Animals are likely to see their share in Parliament rise in the next polls.
The real danger is not an electoral victory of xenophobic, extreme-right parties. The real danger is a Parliament consisting of many small parties, unable to form a coalition strong enough to govern the country. In a period in which the Netherlands, as one of the world’s most open economies and almost entirely dependent on trade, have suffered severely from the global economic crisis, a strong government is vital. Although the reaction of Balkenende IV was lax, at least there was a government.
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