Rediscovering Europe in the Netherlands - St Antony's College ...

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diagnosis The Netherlands not only has a preference for economic integration, depoliticisation and technical embedding of European policy, but also has traditionally favoured the ‘Community method’ of decision making. This method fits in well with the traditional, more or less routine and technical legislative and decision making procedures for negative market integration. What is important for a small country like the Netherlands is that this method enables the European Commission to play a crucial role as an independent representative of the general interest of the community and as the defender of the Treaties, while the European Court of Justice overseas compliance of adopted legislation and regulations. This reduces the risk of crude power politics by the larger countries. This method is also relatively transparent thanks to the involvement of the European Parliament. As a corollary to this, the Dutch policy elites have traditionally felt a profound distrust of what is known as the intergovernmental method, with its dominant role for political (power) plays by the major countries in the European Council and the Council of Ministers (wrr 2003: 232-3 and 238- 9). However, it would be a misunderstanding to interpret this preference for the Community method as an ideologically driven desire for an ultimately federalist outcome. Dutch governments have largely been opposed to ‘grand’, let alone federal blueprints for further integration. Moreover, they have consistently demanded that decisions on the transfer of sovereignty from national to supranational institutions be preceded by lengthy and detailed intergovernmental negotiations (Van Keulen 2006: 98). 59 2.4.2 the traditional method of legitimisation under pressure What are the consequences of the transitional phase in which the eu currently finds itself for the legitimacy of eu policy in the Netherlands? Has the specific Dutch method of legitimisation (as a result of this?) become threatened by the various outcomes since the 1990s? Let us begin with a brief look at the general trends of support for the eu in the Netherlands. Dwindling but still strong support for integration among the Dutch population Opinion polls show that the general level of support for European integration among Dutch citizens (expressed as the percentage of citizens that consider membership of the eu a ‘good thing’ and the percentage of citizens that think that eu membership has benefited their country) compared with citizens in other member states has remained relatively high since the 1970s. Since the peak in the early 1990s support has, however, slightly but regularly dropped (see graphs 2.2 and 2.3 and cpb and scp 2007: 31-40). Around 1990, almost 90 percent of the Dutch population supported the
ediscovering europe in the netherlands opinion that Dutch membership of the eu was a good thing, compared to 73 percent in 2006. The average levels of support among all eu citizens were 70 percent in 1990 and 55 percent in 2006. Where over 80 percent of the Dutch citizens felt that the Netherlands was benefiting from eu membership in 1990, this support had fallen to less than 65 percent in 2006. Figure 2.2 Public support for European integration in the eu, 1973-2006 eu membership is a good thing 90 85 80 75 70 65 60 60 55 50 Bron: Eurobarometer 45 40 EC9 EC10 EA EC12 MT EC15 EURO EU25 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 eu membership is a good thing (nl) eu membership is a good thing (eu) Source: Eurobarometer Research shows that the outcome of the referendum was indeed an expression of discontent with European integration, which goes beyond the content of the Constitutional Treaty (Aarts and Van der Kolk 2005; Dekker and Wennekers 2005; Thomassen 2005 and 2007). Dissatisfaction with the lack of focus and direction of the European integration process played a role, as did dissatisfaction about the further enlargement and democratic content of the eu, the decision making entailed in and the (consequences of the) introduction of the euro, and the organisation of the European internal market. Early in 2004, just after the referendum, a majority of Dutch citizens thought that European integration was developing ‘too quickly’ and, more specifically, that the most recent major enlargement had been a step too far (Aarts and Van der Kolk 2005: 85-6). Recent studies
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Following the negative 2005 referen
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