The Constants of Dutch Foreign Policy

context of the Western European Union (WEU). Now that the Soviet threat has collapsed, the USA need no longer give priority to Europe's defence. A new, more globally-oriented, USA foreign policy is reflected in President Bush's 'new world order'. In economic terms, the US is forced more and more to look westward. This Pacific economic orientation of the USA has also weakened America's cross-Atlantic ties. At the same time, the international situation has changed for the Dutch, too. The Europe of the Six has become the Europe of the Twelve. From the Dutch point of view the most important of the new member states has been the UK. There is less need for an Atlantic reservation to European integration now that the Community includes a large extra-continental power to counter-balance Franco-German aspirations.

The Dutch are also less opposed to European political cooperation because they have learned from the 1973 Arab oil embargo that it can be risky to stand alone. Before 1973 the Netherlands had a strongly pro-Israel reputation, perhaps not always warranted by its actual policies. The Arab countries took particular offence at the Dutch adherence to the English version of resolution 242 of the UN Security Council, calling for Israeli withdrawal from 'occupied territories', rather than 'the occupied territories' mentioned in some other versions. When war broke out in the Middle East in 1973, the Dutch government unequivocally condemned the Arab countries, just as it had done in 1967. It refused to join the other EC member states in a common reaction because of the more pro-Arab attitude of the French in particular. For these reasons, in October 1973, the Arab countries imposed an oil embargo not only on the USA, but also on the Netherlands. The embargo of the Netherlands was even kept in place four months longer than that of the USA. Despite panicky reactions at first - 'car-free Sundays' were declared to save oil - the economic effect of the embargo was insignificant because oil was diverted from other EC countries to the Netherlands, despite their irritation over the Dutch obstinacy. The political effect has been more important. Not only have the Dutch distanced themselves more and more from Israel, but they have also come to see the advantages of a common European foreign policy.

Now that the renewed momentum of European integration has spilled over into closer military cooperation within the WEU, and in renewed proposals for a European Political Union, the Dutch take a less deviant stance than they did in the 1960s. Yet, when the Netherlands took over the EC presidency in July 1991, it attempted to redraft the existing Luxemburg proposal for the treaty to establish a European Political Union to include more supranationalist elements, and to allow a common security policy only as a complement to NATO, much to the annoyance of several other member states. Apparently the traditional reservations have not yet been completely abandoned.

UN

In the past the third constant of Dutch foreign policy, 'internation­alist idealism' primarily took the form of the promotion of international law. More recently it has also surfaced in foreign policy statements and documents in the form of role-conceptions such as 'example' and 'developer': protecting human rights abroad and providing aid to developing countries. These activities are pursued primarily, but not exclusively, within the context of the UN. The peace-keeping missions of that organisation have also been supported either financially or militarily (as most recently in what was formerly Yugoslavia), but that has not been the most conspicuous Dutch contribution to the UN.

As a result of its historical links to the Boers in South Africa, the Netherlands voted in 1961 against expelling the country from the UN for its policy of apartheid, but subsequently the Dutch have become ever more critical of South Africa. Since 1963 the Netherlands has complied with a non-mandatory embargo on military supplies to South Africa, and as a temporary member of the Security Council from 1983 to 1985 it took the initiative for a resolution boycotting weapons made in South Africa. The Dutch have also offered financial assistance to victims of apartheid. The Netherlands has similarly sought to put pressure on South Africa through the EC.

It is not only in South Africa that the Netherlands has supported the cause of human rights. The Dutch have always advocated the appointment of a UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. In terms of governmental policy, this support is to a degree symbolized in the person of the Foreign Secretary, Max van der Stoel (1973-7, 1981—2). Streets have been named after him in Greece and Eastern Europe because of his support for democrats and dissidents when these countries were still ruled autocratically.

In the absence of objective and quantifiable indicators it is, however, difficult to gauge the importance of human rights in Dutch foreign policy compared with that of other countries. The Dutch preoccupation with development aid lends itself more readily to cross-national comparisons. Whether out of a sense of guilt about its colonial past, or as a modern extension of the churches' missionary work, the Dutch attitude towards developing countries borders on tiers-mondisme. The importance of development aid is probably the one aspect of foreign policy on which all major parties are most in agreement. Political disagreement is largely confined to which criteria should be used to select countries for bilateral aid. Constant among these criteria are the degree of poverty, the degree to which the indigenous government puts in an effort of its own, and the existence of an historic responsibility (i.e., to former colonies such as Indonesia and Surinam). More controversial are criteria such as respect for human rights (especially when it conflicts with the historic respon­sibility for former colonies turned dictatorial), or the degree to which Dutch exporting companies can profit from the aid. In 1992 such conflicting criteria led to an ironic episode in which the Indonesian government retaliated against Dutch criticism of its human rights' record by suddenly announcing that it would no longer accept Dutch development assistance.

Bilateral aid is not the only element in the Dutch development program. Multilateral aid constitutes about one third of the total outlays for development assistance and, officially, is preferred to bilateral aid. The Dutch minister without portfolio in charge of these matters is therefore called the Minister for Development Cooperation, rather than Development Aid. For the same reason the Netherlands is an active defender of Third World interests within various UN organisations in this field. As chairman of a UN commission, the Dutch Nobel prize-winning economist, Tinbergen, was instrumental in setting as a target for the 1970s that all rich countries spend at least 0.7 per cent of their national income on development aid. Only Sweden and the Netherlands met this target before the 1975 deadline. In absolute terms, the Netherlands spends as much on development aid as the UK.

Too much should not be made of the idealism in Dutch foreign policy. It is striking that references to Dutch vital national interests are extremely rare in documents and debates devoted to the country's foreign policy. However, this should not be mistaken for political altruism. Interests and ideals are often compatible, or the ideals are formulated as 'aims that are as vague as they are pious', leaving sufficient leeway for an interpreta­tion that does no harm to national interests. When interests and ideals do clash, it is fair to say that, generally speaking, the Dutch merchant carries more weight than the Galvinist minister. The example of how the Netherlands adjusted its Middle East policy after the 1973 oil embargo has already been mentioned. On the other hand, the idealism is more than mere rhetoric. In 1976 the government refused to give export guarantees for the sale of nuclear reactor parts to South Africa; in 1981 the government narrowly escaped being censured for its rejection of an oil boycott of that country. Most significantly, development aid, now at over 1.5 per cent of the national income, is the only chapter of the government's budget that has escaped unscathed in budget cutbacks until the early 1990s.

Foreign Policy Constants Re-examined

We began this chapter with Voorhoeve's list of three clusters of traditions or tendencies in the foreign policy of the Netherlands: maritime commercialism, neutralist abstentionism, and internation­alist idealism. Together these three themes cover so wide a range of policies that it has been argued that anything the Dutch Foreign Office does can always be construed as evidence of at least one of the three traditions. If one avoids that particular pitfall, however, these tendencies provide a useful frame­work for an analysis of developments in Dutch foreign policy. They can still be detected in the Dutch position in the international arena. If the neutralist attitude has been forsaken, it was already abandoned when the Dutch joined the Atlantic Alliance in 1949, but the abstention from international power politics remained. With the benefit of hindsight we were also able to conclude that it is at least an exaggeration to interpret the somewhat less submissive attitude vis-a-vis the USA in the 1970s as a return to neutralism. The emphasis on internationalist idealism received a new impetus from the domestica­tion of Dutch foreign policy since the 1960s, and was broadened to include the protection of human rights and development cooperation. The only potential change lies in an incipient decline of the Atlantic orientation, but it is more a gradual (even reluctant) adaptation to