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

ediscovering europe in the netherlands
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which the government would like to strengthen the legitimacy of eu
policy based on the four dimensions cited earlier. Now that the economic
and political benefits are no longer always unambiguous, this shortcoming
is even more noticeable. The rare attempts at a debate on Europe, such as
the debate surrounding the European referendum in 2005, usually get no
further than gross oversimplifications and a discourse that takes too little
account of the new forms of administration that have become so characteristic
of the eu as a political community or polity. Instead, the emphasis
is on a black-and-white debate between the traditional ‘positive-sum’
approach based on a diplomatic union (‘the European interest is the Dutch
interest’) and, on the opposing side, the equally unsubtle ‘zero-sum’
approach (‘more Europe means less Netherlands’). 3 As a result, Dutch citizens
are confronted with what Van Middelaar strikingly refers to as ‘the
false choice between “charging ahead” or “putting on the brakes”, between
the bright Euro-mantra of more power for the European Parliament and
Commission as an eu government, and on the other hand the Eurosceptic
hope in the national parliaments that they will be able to unleash a
centrifugal force directed against Brussels.’ (Van Middelaar 2004). In short,
Dutch politicians have to date failed to adequately recognise that the
national political arena definitely can and must offer legitimising channels
for Brussels. They have also proven to be incapable of filling the vacuum
between these extremes with creative alternative images, let alone with
meaningful substantive debates (Crum 2007a; Schmidt 2006).
European co-operation for civil society organisations is also just as much
a speciality reserved for a small number of individuals or a department
within the organisation, rather than being a dimension of their regular
activities. While it is true that the Confederation of Netherlands Industry
and Employers, the vno-ncw, and the small-business federation, the
mkb-Nederland, are highly ‘Europeanised’ and organised at the European
level, most civil society organisations prefer to operate at a national or local
level and prefer direct action to the abstraction of representing interests at
the European level, a role which is ultimately fulfilled by umbrella organisations.
Despite the great efforts of a handful of ‘professionals’, civil society
organisations have played virtually no significant role in getting citizens
involved in issues such as the introduction of the euro (Engelen 2007),
or in the referendum campaign for the European Constitutional Treaty
(2007b). The decision making process on the Services Directive was
initially also seen as a more or less exclusively technical administrative
matter in the Netherlands. The Directive was seen above all as a necessary
and unavoidable result of the Treaty agreements governing the free movement
of services. It was only because France opened up the debate on the
draft Directive and even opposed it based on the political and social impact