Rutte well placed to reign on after dud Dutch election campaign

The Netherlands holds the EU’s first general election since the outbreak of coronavirus next week, but you’d be hard-pressed to notice there’s a campaign going on at all. 

A combination of the pandemic and the country’s famed political consensus has rendered the 2021 campaign a dud. Party rallies and door-to-door canvassing have been replaced by a smattering of virtual leaders’ debates held without much contest or incident. 

Even the ever-reliable Dutch far-right has failed to make a splash. Geert Wilders, a veteran anti-Islam politician, is polling second behind the ruling party of Prime Minister Mark Rutte. But Wilders’ diatribes against migrants and Muslims have proven less effective during the pandemic. His far-right PVV is on course to lose vote share from a previous 20 per cent to around 13 per cent, according to the latest polls. (courtesy of Europe Elects)

Rutte and Wilders sparred in a head-to-head debate on Thursday night, where the prime minister felt compelled to insist that he wasn’t in fact a Muslim — twice. Ahead of the debate, Rutte told Volkskrant he was ready to seal Dutch borders in the face of another EU migrant crisis and declared the country’s values “non-negotiable” for foreigners.

Rutte’s preternatural ability to pander to the far-right is part of the reason he is a shoo-in to keep his job for the next four years.

His rightwing liberal VVD party has hovered around 25 per cent of the vote — a remarkable feat in what may end up the most fragmented Dutch parliament in over a century. Up to 17 parties could enter the lower house under the country’s proportional electoral system. 

An uneventful election would suit Rutte. He has called on rival party leaders to tone down campaigning as the country battles the pandemic. Covid-19 has also helped distract from a child benefits scandal that brought down his government in January.

Should he win, the 54-year old premier would lead his fourth coalition government since 2010 and become the Netherlands’ longest-serving prime minister. 

EU issues have been largely absent in a broadly domestic and inward-looking election. Observers online have taken to mocking the inability of most parties to confront topics such as the EU’s recovery fund, Green Deal policies or the looming departure of Angela Merkel from German politics. This “EU olifant” (elephant) in the room even has its own Twitter account.

Dutch ambivalence to the EU is hardly new. But as Rutte has attracted more attention in Brussels for his strident positions against political integration, he has also failed to make a convincing case at home for EU policies the Netherlands does support. His fellow European leaders shouldn’t be surprised if the Dutchman spends another four years being hamstrung by hostile public opinion when he comes to negotiate in Brussels.

Dutch elections are often seen as a bellwether for Europe’s broader political temperature. If so, this non-event campaign suggests that incumbents such as Rutte hold the upper hand as stability and the rapid formation of a government will be prioritised during the public health emergency. That theory will be tested to destruction over the next 12 months, notably with Germany’s federal election in September. 

One area where Dutch elections have set a tone mirrored in other parts of Europe is the salience of cultural and identity issues over economics or social policy, said political scientist Merijn Oudenampsen.

Since the 1990s, the “new” Dutch right — pioneered by former EU commissioner Frits Bolkestein — has led a nationalist backlash against the EU, migration, Islam and globalisation, which “has informed Dutch politics ever since” said Oudenampsen. “Rutte and the VVD have been the biggest beneficiaries.”

Chart du jour: buy bonds, faster

The European Central Bank has pledged to accelerate its bond buying through its €1.85tn pandemic emergency purchase programme to keep sovereign borrowing costs down. The ECB had slowed its purchase of bonds in recent months, but an uptick in yields caused by the expectations of a speedy US recovery has convinced policymakers to ramp up the pace and protect the bloc’s fragile recovery. (chart via FT)

Europe news round-up

• EU governments are exploring ways to pressure the UK to comply with its post-Brexit obligations as they resign themselves to an increasingly combative relationship with Britain. The FT has the scoop on informal discussions between some capitals on options for retaliation including stalling on granting UK financial services equivalence recognition. “It looks like it is going to be quite a tough and rough relationship for the foreseeable future,” said one senior diplomat. (FT)

• Brussels has been warned that AstraZeneca’s promised vaccine supplies will still fall short in the first quarter of the year. Thierry Breton, EU internal market commissioner, said the company is not making “best efforts” to meet its 40m target for the first quarter and must ramp up production. EU diplomats have also been told that the US is unlikely to help divert supplies to Europe to help plug the shortfall. Separately, Denmark, Norway and Iceland suspended use of the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab as a precaution after a Danish woman died with blood clots after receiving the vaccine. Shares in AstraZeneca fell 2.5 per cent on Thursday. The company has said safety is its “highest priority”. No deaths have been attributed directly to any Covid-19 vaccination. (FT)

• Poland and Hungary have asked the European Court of Justice to decide if the rule of law mechanism baked into the bloc’s budget agreement complies with EU law. The mechanism will not be triggered while the ECJ rules on the matter, meaning the tool could lie dormant for up to two years. MEPs are urging the ECJ to swiftly review the case and are threatening to bring their own legal action against the commission for failing to apply the regulation. (Euractiv/Politico)

• US climate envoy John Kerry has ended a whistle-stop tour of Paris and Brussels by warning the EU against using a planned carbon border mechanism too soon. Kerry told the FT he was “concerned” about the trade implications of wielding a tool designed to tax EU imports based on their carbon footprint from polluting countries that have not signed up to climate neutrality pledges. (FT)

• More bad news for Germany’s Christian Democrats ahead of regional elections this weekend: a third CDU MP, Mark Hauptmann, has resigned after becoming embroiled in allegations of taking payments from Azerbaijan. Hauptmann has denied involvement, saying he was resigning due to “hostility” caused by the allegations. (Die Welt)

Coming up today

EU home affairs ministers dial in for an informal videoconference to discuss migration and EU-north Africa co-operation.

mehreen.khan@ft.com; @mehreenkhn
david.hindley@ft.com