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

ediscovering europe in the netherlands
be an important source of legitimacy in the future. After all, there will
always be policy domains that are characterised by relatively ‘technical’
issues, where the envisaged solutions arouse little controversy. In other
cases, the results of eu policy will be no less important, but will have to be
enforced in a context of conflicting interests and policy objectives, making
painful trade-offs unavoidable. Therefore, the wrr supports calls that
are made by other advisory bodies for the establishment of a clear political
prioritisation of eu policy in the Netherlands by both the government
and Parliament. To this end, the wrr recommends that responsibility
for strategic policy choices be placed explicitly in the hands of the Prime
Minister, and that the parliamentary Subsidiarity Committee be transformed
into a prioritisation committee. This would make it possible to
explicitly rely on output legitimisation for those issues which are more
technocratic and politically less sensitive, while still allowing the use of
additional sources of legitimisation for politically sensitive issues.
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Representation
Ideally, political parties represent the views that manifest themselves in
Dutch society, while Parliament represents the Dutch people and the
government formulates and represents Dutch interests. It is becoming
increasingly important for these actors to assume their roles on various
European issues; which become increasingly politicised and therefore
deserve a position within the national representative system. A major
element here is the offering of a diversity of views, that appeals to a broad
spectrum of the citizens and takes into account their preferences. Another
is to avoid the adoption of an overly technical or specialised approach on
European issues. Visibility is thus both a prerequisite and an incentive to
fulfilling the representational role more effectively. Placing responsibility
for eu policy strategy with the Prime Minister could achieve this. The wrr
thinks that this would also underline the close interconnectedness of
national and European policy. The Prime Minister would thus acquire visible
responsibility for the promotion of European interests in the Netherlands
and of Dutch interests in Europe. This would also be in line with the
European reality in which the European Council (of which the Prime
Minister is a member) has begun to play an ever-more prominent role on
the political stage. Visibility is not only crucial for the government, but
also for Parliament and the various political parties, in that it would avoid
the trap of treating European issues as purely ‘technical’ or specialised
matters.
The visibility of European issues and the diversity of views in Parliament
could be strengthened by transforming the recently installed parliamentary
Subsidiarity Committee into a prioritisation committee. Political choices