Dutch parties defy "leaked" circular economy plot
Rutte's envoy urges "wafer-thin" pact for next coalition
THE MESSENGER was a 79 year-old former top civil servant-turned-labour party politician, who in the 1990s served for six years as chairman of the Senate. Which looks like a decent set of qualifications - technocrat, statesman, left-leaning - to assess what’s gone wrong in serial Dutch coalition governments.
Herman Diederik Tjeenk Willink was tasked by prime minister Mark Rutte in the role of informateur, in an attempt to rebuild trust between the cabinet and parliament after a string of scandals. His interim report set out principles to inform the ongoing multi-party talks on the formation of a new coalition government.
Willink’s advice? In a nutshell: Keep it short.
He urged a “wafer-thin” coalition agreement - een flinterdun coalitieakkord. By sticking to the bare bones - an outline of four or five major issues, reported public broadcaster NOS - parties could sidestep the kind of hard-won compromises baked-in to previous coalition pacts.
It sounds simple enough, yet Willink’s “wafer-thin” plan proposed a radical break with precedent.
Almost six weeks after the March election returned 17 parties to parliament, the composition of the next government is no clearer. Arguably, the balance of power is more fluid than when Rutte’s VVD won a commanding lead with 34 of 150 parliamentary seats.
Potential VVD allies, led by the smaller parties and Geert Wilders’ populist PVV, freedom party, have called for a change of prime minister. The mistrust was fuelled when a photographer’s lens caught confidential documents that implied high-level plans to co-opt the independent-minded CDA MP Peter Omzigt, a backbencher whose perseverance uncovered a racist algorithm at the heart of the child benefit scandal.
Whether the next cabinet is Rutte’s fourth - Rutte IV, or D66 leader Sigrid Kaag’s first as prime minister - Kaag I, the scope for policy changes is wide open. And not least as a consequence of burgeoning public mistrust of authorities, fuelled by the Covid-19 pandemic.
If the hard bargaining has begun, it’s happening - as usual - behind closed doors. Meanwhile, parliament is restive. True to the Dutch style, it could all take a long time to resolve - or just to bury the differences. Hence Willink’s call for a different approach.
Something-for-everyone
Under Rutte I, II and III, coalition cabinets spanned parties on both sides of the political spectrum. Rutte I relied on support from the populist right. Rutte II depended on a pact with the PvdA, labour party, that proved unpopular with traditional left-wing voters. So-called “purple cabinets” underpinned a centrist, power-sharing arrangement bound together by hydra-headed plans.
That trend of something-for-everyone alliances produced coalition agreements that grew thicker and thicker with each election. By adopting a “wafer-thin” alternative, reasoned Willink, the technocratic work of drafting policy could be left to professionals in the civil service. This, in turn, would make the next cabinet more responsive to MPs.
No doubt the informateur’s advice is sincere. Overwhelmingly, MPs shared his aversion to secretive policy trade-offs brokered behind closed doors. Parties across the political spectrum are impatient to see a more open management style in the next cabinet. Which could encourage more flexibility in policy-making, argued Willink.
That quality - what’s known in business jargon as agile management - has been conspicuous by its absence in the government’s response to the coronavirus. As I wrote here, the pandemic exposed a yawning gap between ministers’ evident high self-regard and a dangerous mistrust among sections of the public.
But would a different mode of government - with a more useful, practical role for parliament in approving policy - reverse the trend?
In the Netherlands, as in most other open societies, scepticism of official guidelines is matched in a visible, popular trend of low-level civil disobedience. From the so-called “intelligent lock-down” adopted in 2020, to January’s rioting, and the faltering roll-out of a vaccine programme - the pandemic has wrought its own damage to the Dutch body politic.
Gradually, life is moving outdoors again. Trains are busier each day. Parks are filling up. “Niemand houdt zich nog aan de regels,” reportedVolkskrant correspondent Noël van Bemmel during a walk through Amsterdam on King’s Day - nobody is sticking to the rules.
The ears hang out
The downside - een keerzijde - to Willink’s “wafer-thin” formula is that the same deep scepticism evident in society will infuse parliamentary debate. A growing risk, wrote Natalie Righton in the Volkskrant, was that every possible solution would be negotiated endlessly in the House - het risico groeit dat later in de Kamer over elke mogelijke oplossing eindeloos onderhandeld gaat worden.
Take migration, a substantial concern for the left-wing parties after the Greek border was closed to new refugees four years ago. Parties including PvdA and GroenLinks would be reluctant to hand over control of migration policy: “It is not attractive to co-govern if they have to make the elaboration of migration and climate policy dependent on a debate with the Lower House, where right-wing parties simply have the majority”.
In that scenario, argued Righton, a majority in parliament could instruct a future PvdA minister of migration to reduce the refugee quota. Other so-called progressive policy areas were similarly sensitive. Where coalition governments had sought centrist policy positions, parliament could adopt a less tolerant stance, especially on issues that excite populist sentiments.
Probable casualties of a more assertive parliament could include - say - tough measures to curb carbon emissions from industry. Or new rules to tackle racial discrimination in the workplace. Settling on four or five big issues to shape a post-corona recovery may seem a good starting point for the next coalition, as Willink proposed. But the biggest hurdle for coalition-builders is to frame them optimistically, creating a positive agenda.
This may explain why a LinkedIn post by the circular economy pioneer Guido Braam caught my eye. Sharing a link to a collaborative draft policy in Google docs, he touted a “man on the moon mission” to unite the political factions. At long last (he claimed), the parties were ready to listen to progressive ideas for a circular economy.
For once, this notion - listening - reads much better in the Dutch idiom. The probable coalition partners - de waarschijnlijke coalitiepartners - in VVD and D66 had let their ears hang out - de oren te hebben laten hangen, wrote Braam.
Een economie circulaire
To the uninitiated, circular economy thinking can seem utopian. Its core premise is an economy that mimics the basic operating principles of Nature: a closed-loop of sustainable systems, operating within planetary boundaries, and with zero waste.
Applied to modern industries, advocates of the circular economy argue for reduced extraction of raw materials; industrial-scale recycling, re-use and re-manufacturing; a rapid transition to low-carbon, renewable energy; and a systemic shift in capitalism to prioritise natural capital over the short-termism of a take-make-waste model in today’s linear economy.
In his LinkedIn post, Braam revealed the draft of a coalition agreement with the working title Een Circulaire Economie die Verbindt - A Circular Economy That Connects. Remarkably, the term ‘circular economy’ (which occurred in just two sentences of the previous coalition agreement) was conspicuous in chapters on agriculture, climate, finance, housing, industry, labour markets and foreign policy.
The utopian flavour survived in the promise of new prospects for education and innovation and new jobs. The expectation was that a circular economy would bring more equality - de verwachting is dat de circulaire economie zal bijdragen aan meer gelijkheid, wrote Braam .
Circularity was a means to avert ecological disaster while contributing to prosperity and well-being in the Netherlands and the rest of the world - een ecologische ramp kan voorkomen en ook nog eens bijdraagt aan de welvaart en het welzijn in Nederland en daarmee ook aan die van de rest van de wereld.
A draft document leaked from multi-party negotiations in the Hague was said to have drawn stinging criticism. The circular economy plans were “too visionary, too positive and would motivate far too many people to set to work on a better Netherlands”. Sources in the conservative populist camp were alleged to be sceptical, too: "This does not at all contribute to the victim role that we like so much".
Among the most worrisome aspects was a chapter, The Netherlands and the World. Planning for a circular economy “could have a very unifying effect and it will be difficult to point to other countries as an excuse not to get moving," reported Braam.
And the penny dropped. Only then - duh - did I realise, with a slight sinking feeling, that everything I’d read was a spoof. This eloquent exposé was a catalogue of frustration, the work of a circular economy enthusiast in full satirical mode.
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