SOCIETY 384

H.E. Peter Potman
image/s by SOCIETY/Pobaschnig
KHM of Rembrandt van Rijn and Samuel van Hoogstraten,
who was one of his most prolific pupils.
How is the trade balance between the Netherlands
and Austria?
We have about € 6 billion exports from the Netherlands
to Austria, about € 4 billion imports from Austria.
So that is a 10 billion Euro trade relationship,
which makes Austria our 13 th largest trading partner.
In our economic relationships, we are focusing
on renewable energy, because due to climate
change, a priority for both the Dutch and the Austrian
government is the energy transition. In this
field, we collaborate the most. We are working
together with Austria to see if we can establish a
hydrogen transport corridor connecting the port
of Vienna to the Rotterdam port. We try to do multimodal
transportation developments, to have
more transportation by barge, but also to see if
we can make the trucks in the future drive on
hydrogen. The second element that we are trying
to promote is the collaboration in the field of
innovation and technology, like the semiconductor
industry for example.
The third priority that we have is our political
cooperation that is becoming more and more
important within the European Union, because of
all the challenges that we are facing. The Netherlands
and Austria see eye to eye in many areas
of EU policy, such as the internal market, climate,
the rule of law and migration. We are both the fiscal
conservatives within the European Union too,
because there are also countries who want to
have the EU spend more and more money. The
question is, where this money is coming from.
Concerning EU expansion, I think the Dutch
want to be a little bit more critical than Austria.
But we believe that we should be very careful to
expand with member states before they are ready
with respect to their rule of law and the reform of
their institutions. That is a lively discussion, and
obviously we also need the EU to stand united
against the Russian aggression against Ukraine.
We are also very happy that Austria, although it is
a neutral country when it comes to military alliances,
is very much in line with the EU when it
comes to supporting Ukraine. That's an important
element as well.
What areas are you mostly working on in the
multi lateral field?
On the UN side, we are mostly dealing with
organizations that are active in the field of nonproliferation.
When it comes to the IAEA, we
support the work of safeguards in order to make
sure that nuclear material does not end up in a
nuclear weapon. The situation has not changed
much since I was dealing with these issues a
long time ago.
We are seeing a Renaissance when it comes to
nuclear energy, the Netherlands have one nuclear
power plant, but there has been talk about the
possibility of having new nuclear power plants.
The Netherlands have been elected into the Board
of Governors of the IAEA, which will also take up
part of my work in the upcoming years.
Another priority in the UN field here in Vienna is
the Commission on Narcotic Drugs, since we have,
like in many countries, substance abuse problems
also in the Netherlands.
A lot of synthetic drugs are produced and traded
through the Netherlands by criminal groups, so
the Dutch government is also really stepping up
fighting organized crime.
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