The Netherlands and the European Union

Verity Craig, Principal, Carmichael Birrell & Co. and Director, The Empire Club of Canada; The Reverend Dr. John S. Niles, Victoria Park United Church and 3rd Vice-President, The Empire Club of Canada; John Hinnen, Vice-President. Radio News Programming, Rogers Broadcasting; Elizabeth Witmer, MPP, Deputy Opposition Leader, Province of Ontario; Jack Vanderkooy, President and CEO, DUCA Financial Services Credit Union Ltd.; William G. Whittaker, Partner, Lette, Whittaker and 2nd Vice-President, The Empire Club of Canada; Case Ootes, Councillor. Ward 29, Toronto Danforth, City of Toronto; Wilbert Witkamp, President, Dutch Treat Organization Inc.; and Don Cowan, President and CEO, ABN AMRO Bank Canada.

Introduction by John Koopman

The Dutch are not known for being bellicose but during the Dutch Golden Age when The Netherlands stirred, England trembled. At that time, although one of Europe's tiniest countries, The Netherlands was the greatest naval power in the world. During the second of four Anglo-Dutch wars, Admiral Michiel de Ruyter sailed up the Thames and destroyed much of the English fleet. It was England's greatest military disaster since the Norman Conquest.

Kipling wrote about this low point in English history in "The Dutch in the Medway":

If wars were won by feasting, Or victory by song,

Or safety found in sleeping sound, How England would be strong! But honour and dominion

Are not maintained so

They're only got by sword and shot, And this the Dutchmen know!

For me, The Netherlands is a study in contradictions and contrasts.

Although Holland was steeped in Calvinism it has developed into one of the most libertine societies on the globe, where prostitution is legal and drug use tolerated. It is hard to imagine that this same culture produced the South African Boers, who, prior to the collapse of apartheid, created one of the world's most rigid and closed societies.

It is a nation obsessed with cleanliness, yet nearly every Dutchman has his favourite Brown Café (Bruise Kroegen) so-called because most of them have not been cleaned since the Dutch Golden Age.

Modern-day Dutch have somehow developed a reputation for parsimony matched only by the Scots. Legend has it that copper wire was invented by a Dutchman and a Scot fighting over a penny. Yet in reality The Netherlands contributes more per capita on foreign aid than almost any other country in the world. The Netherlands pays more per capita into the European Union than any other country, yet remains a staunch supporter of the Union.

It is a society that actively promoted the emigration of hundreds of thousands of its own sons in the '50s only to find itself importing hundreds of thousands of people from across the globe in the following decade.

It is one of the world's most densely populated countries, and yet per capita it is the world's largest exporter of agricultural products. If you drive through the Flevoland or the Nord Oost Polder it would be easy to think you were in Saskatchewan. Despite a chronic lack of sunshine it has become the flower capital of the world.

In the hundred years of the Empire Club speeches we have been addressed by ambassadors and representatives of dozens of countries. Yet this will be the first time a Dutch ambassador has ever addressed this club. After 350 years it may be time the Empire Club forgave the Dutch for Michiel De Ruyter's audacity.

Ambassador van Hellenberg Hubar joined the Dutch diplomatic service over 32 years ago. He is a former ambassador to Israel and has served in New York, Brussels, Vienna, Kuwait, Algiers, Rabat and Montevideo.

Please welcome His Excellency to the podium of the Empire Club of Canada.

J.G. van Hellenberg Hubar

Ladies and gentlemen, it is a pleasure and privilege to be invited to address this august audience.

Before I start, I would like to pay tribute to the role of the Canadian Armed Forces in the liberation of Europe and of my country. On the 6th of June, D-day was commemorated. We have never forgotten the role Canadians played in our liberation. I went around Canada issuing medals of commemoration to thousands of veterans, a very moving task. Thank you Canada. Thank you Major Bill Duncan, who took part in the liberation of Breda and is now among us. Without the sacrifice of Canadians, I would not be standing here.

Ladies and gentlemen, Canada and the EU is a story of two solitudes, as my French colleague and friend, Ambassador Philippe Guelluy, explained here some time ago.

I don't like to come across as a chauvinist, but a few random facts and figures are needed to start with.

What is Holland? It is a country the size of Nova Scotia, with 16.3 million inhabitants, over half of the population of Canada and, according to Newsweek, the 10th-most-important country in the world. Its criteria may have been a bit selective, but we are certainly, in influence and financial power, always punching above our weight. We are for example the second- or third-largest suppliers of foreign direct investment (FDl) to the U.S., the fourth to Canada and the second to Mexico. We invest per head of our population 50 per cent more in the U.S.A. than Canada does.

The Rotterdam and Amsterdam harbours handle 388 million tons per year, with an annual growth scenario of 2 per cent. This 2-per-cent annual growth in those two harbours alone equals four times the whole annual tonnage handled in Montreal.

Schiphol, Amsterdam Airport, is the 4th-biggest in Europe.

Eighty per cent of the people speak English as a second language; a third of us speak three languages or more.

After the U.S.A. and Canada, we are the third NATO country in terms of what I would call "usable forces" in relation to population size. We are involved in many operations, not only in peacekeeping but also in more traditional military roles. Our official international development aid is 0.8 per cent of GDP.

We are a "wired" country. We have fast-growing biotech clusters. We are also a virtual country through our large global networks.

And we also pay five times per head more to the EU budget, in net terms, than for example Denmark does. Now a glance at the EU.

On June 10 and the days following, 350 million EU citizens were called to vote for the European Parliament (EP). The results may not have pleased everyone, but it was a fantastic feat. After India it was the largest democratic voting process in the world.

On May 1, the EU was enlarged and enriched by 10 new members, raising our population to 450 million inhabitants--more than the U.S.A., Mexico and Canada combined. We are presently the largest prosperous market in the world.

The cost of enlargement? Around 41.5 billion euro or C$67 billion. The advantage? Well, you should realize that the bilateral trade between Holland and Poland in 2002 was already 4.2 billion euro, as a consequence of the possibility of Poland joining the EU.

The smooth integration of the 10 new member-states is certainly a priority. We have to consolidate, to insert, to harmonize, and last but not least, to be convincing in order to avoid losing the support of the general public.

Evidently not all aspects of the EU and the single market will be immediately in place. Transition measures have been agreed upon to gradually achieve the following objectives:

• Free movement of groups and, between the Schengen group, of people;

• Freedom of services and competition in 25 countries;

• Free access to tenders for public contracts everywhere;

• Legal harmonization in order to create a level playing field;

• The substitution of different national regulations in our countries and their replacement by EU-business law;

• Harmonization of banking, insurance and securities regulations and of intellectual, commercial and industrial property;

• Harmonization of property rights;

• Harmonization of VAT, excise duties, energy taxation, personal and company taxation.

However, it is good to remind you that we negotiated for many years with the 10 countries on their inclusion in the EU. In many areas we had to bring them up to a level that would make their governance, their judiciary, their democracy and their economy compatible with ours, so that they could withstand the shock of the exposure. That exercise alone comprised roughly 80 to 90,000 pages of text per new country with what we call "aquis communautaire," our "fund in trust," of all we had commonly achieved and that had to be adopted by the new member-states.

I think you know most of that already.

The single market is okay, but skepticism creeps in when the more lofty, idealistic and political side of the EU is addressed, I hear you thinking.

I grant you immediately, that in the sector of politics, where often more money is lost than won, "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder."

When you look at our divisions on say Iraq, you cannot but with difficulty believe in the EU speaking with one voice, claiming its part of international responsibility.

Now my French colleague and I have not always been using the same lines, but he suggested that I remind you of a very simple truth: cohesion in the EU is evidently not always perfect, but the effect of heads of government, ministers and thousands of bureaucrats meeting, talking and trying to compromise permanently creates in practice a collective EU identity

The view many people in North America have of the EU is blurred by the complexity of its institutions as well as by the vast array of 25 countries. 23 languages and so many cultures. The healthy debate we wage about our political objectives or the "finalite politique" of the EU is also presenting a sometimes confusing image. I say healthy, because that is what debate is in a democracy. Challenges by someone offering a different view keeps you alert, honest and sharp. In our case, failure has unacceptable existential consequences and is therefore no option.

The EU is very much like Canada--a singular experiment; it is about building a co-operative, institutional system with the objective to maintain peace and stability and to promote prosperity and freedom both within and beyond its borders. This is an abstract mouthful for a highly ambitious project. We aim to prevent wars from ever again emanating from Europe or occurring within Europe. We want to procure the quality of life, mankind everywhere feels entitled to. We want to project a positive force beyond our borders and we want to be able to keep up a healthy competition with other large economies in our global village.

And all this, not by force, but by the free choice of the peoples of Europe, and by the judicious use of the pulling power created by the attraction of our success on the peoples, in our own countries and farther away.

Our power is the power of appeal!

On July 1, The Netherlands will assume the presidency of the Council of the EU and hence will preside over councils of heads of state and government, over numerous other ministerial councils and working groups and of the meetings of the EU ambassadors around the world.

We will do so for six months and will implement an agenda that has been set before and will run long after our presidency.

We are assuming our presidency at a rather important juncture in the life of the EU.

The insertion of the new countries has to be smooth and as rapid as is responsible. The European Council will hopefully adopt our constitution and we have just had elections for the EP in our 25 member countries. In the fall a new Commission will be appointed, a permanent Chairman of the Council of Ministers for General and Foreign Affairs appointed and a new Minister of Foreign Affairs chosen. Furthermore, the constitution will be submitted to approval by referendum in a number of countries. A decision on the start of negotiations with Turkey has to be taken during our presidency.

These events will determine to a large extent the nature of the work laid out for us until December.

I will spare you our detailed agenda, but I shall mention some priorities:

• Agreement on the contours and the parameters of the rolling budget for the coming years (evidently important for us if you remember that we are disproportionally big net-contributors);

• A more coherent and effective common foreign and security policy to help to contribute to a solution to the grave conflict in the Middle East;

• Work on the issue of enlargement;

• Speedy and effective integration of the new member-states to prove to their respective populations that all the effort they have put into this accession will bear fruit;

• Continued negotiations with Bulgaria and Rumania with the objective to finalize these negotiations in 2004;

• A decision when to start negotiations with Turkey and on the question of Croatia's readiness to accede;

• Promotion of a sustainable economy and reduction of administrative costs and regulatory burdens;

• Co-operation in the fields of justice and interior affairs (Gijs de Vries, a Dutchman, has been appointed anti-terrorism co-ordinator).

So 2004 is a special year with a heavy European agenda to be implemented with realism and ambition. We need to pay attention to the foundations of the European integration, our shared, democratically acquired modern values as well as the principles of the rule of law.

It's important, as the elections for the EP have shown once again, to try to involve the citizens more and to give them ownership.

A condition to achieve more involvement of our citizens is to show selbstbeschraenkung as the Germans say, to avoid trop de zele, or show restraint in the ambition to rule from the centre.

To achieve this, the principle of subsidiarity is a useful criterium and national parliaments have a function to fulfill in the application of that subsidiarity. Subsidiarity is a concept which originated in Christian-democratic political theory. It amounts to the assumption that: "What can best be done at a lower level should remain the competence of that lower level."

We have to consolidate and perhaps to renationalize certain issues such as cultural policies, public health and social policies and also the so-called structural funds deserve revision which is a rather expensive way of pumping money around from the states to Brussels and back. We should focus more on criminal law, border protection, security and defence as sectors to be harmonized.

We could also introduce an EU-wide referendum on some important issues as a means to improve the feeling of ownership among our peoples.

Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to take you a step back from that agenda.

Firstly, you may already have noticed that I do not adhere to the view that the EU is simply a large supermarket with professional management (the Commission), that enables its customers to pick and choose their convenience products comfortably, whilst fighting off competition (from Third World providers) with price-breaking tactics. That view is one-dimensional and would lead the EU to self-destruct.

So, the EU is not only about bread, butter and broccoli, nor is it only about battalions and battleships! On the other hand, we need somehow to equip ourselves with a full complement of assets to support our foreign policy and to be able to play the responsible role that is commensurate with our economic status, is expected from us by the international community and hence is an obligation.

We also don't want to become all the same. A pot-pourri without character. On the other hand, we just need sufficient cohesion to stay together, to show success and attract followers and to move the project of EU along into a future whose contours are not yet always clearly discernible.

Our train has no reverse. We can stay a while revving in neutral, but the pressures of the geopolitical reality, the challenges and threats force us to adapt rapidly.

I for one believe that the EU is somehow aiming for a modus between the alternatives of a Westphalian nation-state, a (con)-federation, and a multi-nation neo-mediaeval political structure with shifting borders and spheres of influence.

Max Weber, who studied the different models of state formation, believed that the good old Westphalian nation-state stood the best chances historically to survive. We can only empirically discover whether he is right. If so, we should rather opt for a state-like architecture for Europe-a federation. That is however a notion that sparks strong objections. It is a catalyst of a lot of debate about the optimal relationship between the centre and the periphery.

In spite of Max Weber, I find comfort in the words of Darwin: "Not the strongest or the fittest will survive, but he who is most ready to adapt to changing conditions."

Adapting is exactly what Europeans are doing continuously. We changed from six members to 15 and now to 25. From countries of emigration we became immigrant destinations. As our demography changes, our societies will change accordingly, a fact we have to face with confidence. Globalization means change; emancipation is change.

In my experience, the process of change transforms those who are involved in it, even if they are passive bystanders. The importance may be the peaceful and controlled process itself, more than its unpredictable outcome. It allows us to adapt to modernity without unnecessary fear and upheaval.

Our European region knows some of the stress caused by the mingling of peoples with very different perceptions of their own identity, without yet having acquired a new collective identity, running parallel to, but not replacing the original identities. Canada has expertise to offer to us in this field. And the EU has proven to be a provider of a convenient conduit for a peaceful process of change.

So in conclusion, the incoming Dutch presidency of the EU believes that the combination of some modesty regarding the issues we want to centrally administer on the one hand, and more ambition as regards a common foreign policy and the military power to sustain it, whilst continuing the arduous work needed to maintain fiscal responsibility and continuing work on the single market, may be a winning formula. That is what the different peoples of Europe seem to expect from their membership.

One last remark: I consider a European Defence capability co-existing with NATO not only necessary to back up our diplomacy and to secure the European perimeter, but also to provide an additional anchor for ourselves, when old anchors seem to have lost some weight. Between NATO and the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) exists a good working relationship and we have a division of labour that is both pragmatic and effective, as our operations in the Balkans demonstrate.

Thank you for your attention.

The appreciation of the meeting was expressed by Wilbert Witkamp, President of the Dutch Treat Organization Inc.