The Books Supplement of NRC Handelsblad of May 1 2004 appropriately also discusses John Gillingham “European integration, 1950-2003”, Christopher Booker and Richard North “The Great Deception”, and Jacques Delors “Mémoires” (apparently French).
Interesting, and only available for Dutch people now, is Renée Postma (2004), from the reporter of NRC Handelsblad for Central Europe. What strikes me from her account is the robber baron period after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the hurt that still exists. The reader is quickly confronted with suicides from persons who were brought in hopeless conditions. I am very moved by this, for my paper (1990a) that was blocked from discussion by the directorate of CPB was intended precisely to prevent all this.
Dutch readers can benefit from Postma’s account. On page 113 she shows that the Dutch prime minister Wim Kok did not know what he was talking about when he promised Poland that Holland would employ 40,000 Polish nurses.
Job flows in the enlarged EU are a hot topic, but there are a lot of confused arguments like this. The best approach is that each economy targets full employment, so that only those people migrate who freely opt for it. Problems in the labour market can be solved in Holland too, so migration is second best and hides the real problems. Poland also needs lots of nurses. Foreign training of course is useful, and so on, but if economic conditions force people to move permanently, then something seems to be wrong with the economy. John Kenneth Galbraith (1979), in his booklet on poverty, has forcefully shown that migration has historically been one of the best ways to fight poverty, but those historical circumstances were different. In the present situation, investments in Central Europe are the key approach and that means that people are needed in Central Europe.
A key passage in Postma’s book is:
“In Central Europe there is a romantic vision about the Dutch citizen. He would be the example of a successful relationship between government and individual, a rational being who decides on the base of both self-interest and the common interest and thus finds the social optimum. According to the Hungarian writer Pétér Nádas the Dutch have understood the importance of compromise. Only by co-operation at all levels it is possible to keep a dry polder.” (p105).
Postma confronts this view with the events around prof. dr. W.S.P. Fortuyn. I can usefully confront it with the ideas in DRGTPE as well. For foreigners it may be difficult to get a grip on Holland. A key point is this. Holland has 16 million inhabitants and may be regarded as a relatively small country. In a specialised professional field, such as macro-economics, everyone tends to know everyone else. Social control, biases, prejudices, stigma, and so on, can occur. As a Dutchman, I presume that Dutch society is admirable in many respects, but perhaps we are also a bit spoiled (and not only because of our resource of natural gas).
The EU has quite some challenges ahead. It is also obvious that my analysis is not mentioned in the debate on them while it is the best way to meet them. Hence boycott Holland.
Advice to vote NO on the current proposals for a European Constitution
My advice is to vote NO on the current proposals for a European Constitution.