Two weeks after an extraordinary European Council called to debate one of the hottest issues of the moment, the European Union’s response to competition from China and the United States to promote the green transition, and one of the oldest and most poisoned, the immigration, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, traveled to Brussels yesterday to meet with the president of the Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and make their positions clear.
On the second issue, a warning: The Netherlands received 50,000 asylum seekers in 2022 and its system is “under pressure”. If there is no return to the situation prior to the Syrian crisis and the Dublin agreement is applied so that they are registered and cared for in the first EU country they set foot in, “Schengen is in danger”. On the possible relaxation of the state aid rules that Germany and France are asking for, an idea that goes hand in hand with a new European fund to guarantee that all countries have the means to invest, he drew a red line that heralds a storm for the summit, because the winds blow in the opposite direction: “It is not necessary to put fresh money on the table.”
His visit came before it was reported that Berlin is finally leaning towards sending its Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine and allowing other countries to do so. The Hague rents 18 cars of this type to Berlin and Rutte does not rule out “buying and giving” them to Ukraine if Germany decides to send its own, Rutte explained in an interview with La Vanguardia and other European newspapers. “I perfectly understand Ukraine’s request and I’m not against the idea” but “I don’t want to put pressure on Germany,” Rutte said, recalling that his country has invested 2.5 billion euros in arming Kyiv. “Ukraine must win, and Russia must lose.”
Although he admits that the aid macroplan included in the law for the Reduction of Inflation in the United States (IRA) poses “risks” – “I think not deliberately sought” – for the European sector of clean technologies or electric cars and can to withdraw investment from the EU, the Dutch liberal politician, more alone in his approaches since the United Kingdom left the EU, considers it “primary” to avoid “a race to the bottom of State aid” that endangers the European market. “I can accept changes, but limited. And those who ask for them will have to convince me that they are useful and necessary”, warns Rutte (The Hague, 1967).
What should the EU do in the face of strong external competition?
First of all, we need to see how we can make better use of the funds that currently exist in the EU, because there is a lot of money available in the European Recovery and Resilience Fund and in the current budget. I don’t think we need to put fresh money on the table, neither help nor loans. Now we know that not because Europe has a triple A, its bonds have interest rates as low as Germany or the Netherlands, so the impact of such a measure would be little.
But for some countries the financing costs of European debt issues are still lower than theirs, for example for Italy. And many governments fear that, if the rules on State aid are relaxed, as is already being seen, the ones that are going to take advantage are Germany and France. Why are you so adamant against the idea of ??new funds?
Because if you look at what’s left of the Recovery Fund, the loans that countries haven’t used, there’s a lot of money in the system that we could mobilize quickly. For my country, the only reason we accepted the aid plan for the pandemic was because it was conditional on reforms and the Commission is monitoring that governments make them to access the funds. The idea was that all those countries that need money when another crisis arrives will be able to fend for themselves because they will have reformed their pension systems or healthcare.
The draft conclusions of the summit prepared by Charles Michel talks about new funds. Do they go too far?
I never talk about drafts, but if the question is whether I am in favor of a new Sure program [the mechanism approved in 2020 to finance national expenses with European debt], the answer is no, I would have very serious doubts.
Other politicians think instead that in the current circumstances it is not possible to continue with business as usual, that there is a risk of being slow or naive in the face of what the US is doing.
I agree that you have to act quickly. That is why I support the Commission in the idea of ??mobilizing all the existing money as soon as possible, while we continue to make changes to the economy. I’m not going to single out any country, but there are big economies in the EU that could reform faster to compete with the US. The IRA must force us to think and organize to remain competitive.
With the pandemic, in July 2020, when there was talk of putting fresh money, he was also opposed and lost the battle.
No, I didn’t lose it. I didn’t like the idea of ??aid, it’s true. We can say that I lost that battle, but I did not feel it that way because I put a condition: if they wanted help, I wanted to be able to tell my public opinion that all those economies that did not have the money to face the covid on their own, as we did, and needed European money, they would make the necessary reforms so that next time they would not need it. Now these reforms are being made, under the supervision of the European Commission, which evaluates all countries, including mine.
Can’t it happen now too, that he ends up giving in…?
No, because then I got what I wanted and that’s done. Now I don’t see any logical reason to put fresh money on the table, because there is so much left unspent. It is not for me to do it, but for the Commission, which is already doing it. Adding in RePower EU, the Recovery Fund and so on, I suspect there is quite a bit of money left unused, probably more than what the US is putting in.
Your name sounds like a possible candidate to take over from Jens Stoltenberg as head of NATO, are you interested in the position? And, if he says that this is not the case, is his government going to propose a name?
No, I’m not interested at all. I love my job in the Dutch government, I’m halfway through my term and I have other ambitions for when I finish it. I will totally leave politics and do something completely different. And I don’t want to go to the European Commission or the Council or NATO, so you can take my name off the table because it’s definitely not going to happen. Never again. I can’t answer the other question because we don’t really know what schedule we’re talking about and it’s something we have to decide collectively in NATO. Stoltenberg is an excellent general secretary and I’m glad she’s been in charge for the last year, but we don’t know exactly how long she’s going to continue and when we’re going to make a decision on it.
