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C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 THE HAGUE 001976 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/08/2016 
TAGS: PREL PGOV PHUM MAAR ISAF NATO AF NL
SUBJECT: SCENESETTER FOR EUR PDAS VOLKER'S VISIT TO THE 
NETHERLANDS 
 
REF: THE HAGUE 1958 
 
THE HAGUE 00001976  001.2 OF 002 
 
 
Classified By: Ambassador Roland Arnall; reasons 1.4 (b) and (d). 
 
PDAS Volker: 
 
¶1. (C) My staff and I warmly welcome you to The Hague.  Our 
Dutch MFA hosts are looking forward to consulting on a wide 
range of issues, including the Riga Summit, Uruzgan, Lebanon, 
OSCE reform (and the Kazakh presidency bid), the Arms Trade 
Treaty, and detainee policy.  You will also have excellent 
opportunities to engage with Parliamentarians, opinion makers 
and the press during your visit.  Your speech to the 
Netherlands Atlantic Commission and your press availability 
will be excellent opportunities to define the U.S. agenda and 
to reinforce in sometimes doubting minds the importance we 
continue to place on solid trans-Atlantic relations.  The 
recent revelations about secret prisons have raised painful 
questions about trust and transparency between allies; 
putting this behind us will take hard work, but your visit 
will help begin this process. 
 
ELECTION POLITICS: 
------------------ 
 
¶2. (C) This is an election year, with all that that entails. 
The governing center-right coalition of Christian Democrats 
(CDA) and Liberals (VVD) face tough opposition from the 
center-left Labor Party (PvdA), but the results are far from 
certain.  At the moment, the PvdA -- led by the charismatic 
Wouter Bos -- have a 5-10 point lead in the polls over the 
next largest party (CDA), but a strong economy appears to be 
shifting support back to Prime Minister Balkenende and his 
political allies, the VVD.  No single party has enough 
support to win a majority, which ensures that the next 
government -- like all Dutch governments -- will be a 
coalition.  If CDA and VVD together win a majority, they 
could exclude PvdA from the next government, even if PvdA 
emerges as the largest party in Parliament.  Alternatively, 
PvdA may seek to form a coalition with either the CDA or VVD 
-- in either case, moderating the PvdA's more Euro-centric 
approach to foreign policy.  There is a remote chance that 
left-leaning parties -- PvdA, the Socialist Party (S/P), and 
GreenLeft (GL) -- could form a majority in Parliament, but 
long-standing differences between the parties would make the 
formation of a stable government extremely unlikely. If no 
natural majority emerges from the November 22 elections a few 
small parties -- such as the Protestant Christian Union (CU) 
-- could become kingmakers.  You will meet PvdA foreign 
policy spokesman, MP Bert Koenders and his VVD counterpart, 
MP Hans van Baalen, Tuesday afternoon.  Either man stands a 
good chance of being a minister in the next government, 
should his party be included. 
 
NATO: 
----- 
 
¶3. (C) The good news is that nearly every possible government 
coalition will be supportive of continued collaboration with 
the U.S. within existing frameworks, such as NATO, despite 
controversial issues such as detainee policy and trade talks. 
 This reflects the deep transatlantic orientation pervading 
Dutch political culture.  Only a few weeks ago, the formerly 
Maoist Socialist Party (SP) formally renounced its 
decades-long opposition to Dutch NATO membership in a blatant 
effort to present itself as a "credible" coalition partner 
for the PvdA.  The PvdA, meanwhile, has been careful to draw 
a distinction between its opposition to many U.S. policies 
from its long-standing support for NATO; the PvdA, for 
example, opposed the deployment of 600 Dutch Special Forces 
to Afghanistan under OEF, but unanimously supported the 
deployment of 1,400 troops to Uruzgan as part of the ISAF 
mission. 
 
¶4. (C) Regardless of the outcome of the November 22 
elections, Prime Minister Balkenende will come to Riga in a 
caretaker capacity -- forming a new Dutch government 
generally takes between three and six months -- and with his 
mind firmly focused on domestic politics.  Fortunately, the 
issues currently on the table for Riga are not likely to be 
contentious domestically or create divisions between us and 
the Dutch.  In recent weeks, the Dutch have dropped their 
opposition to granting Intensified Dialogue to Georgia and 
signed a Letter of Intent committing 500 hours worth of 
funding to the C-17 project for FY07.  On other issues -- 
NRF, Global Partnership, NTM-I, etc. -- the Dutch generally 
 
THE HAGUE 00001976  002.2 OF 002 
 
 
support our objectives and share our frustration over the 
unwillingness of other partners to move forward quickly or to 
deploy resources.  Over the long term, the Dutch are cautious 
about enlargement/expansion prospects and hope to engage in a 
"comprehensive" dialogue on the NATO's identity and future 
roles before extending new invitations -- a position 
determined as much by domestic skepticism about the EU's 
rapid expansion as by any NATO-specific concerns.  No doubt 
your interlocutors will look to you for clues regarding our 
long-term thinking about NATO to help formulate their 
positions for Riga and beyond. 
 
Afghanistan/Detainees: 
---------------------- 
 
¶5. (C) The bad news is that detainee policy, in particular, 
has soured the mood among the Dutch public and may reopen the 
debate on Dutch involvement in Afghanistan.  Dutch 
politicians, with the exception of Foreign Minister Bot, have 
generally not shown the desire to defend the U.S.-Dutch 
relationship publicly, and all too many have jumped on the 
bandwagon and heaped criticism at us.  Your press 
availability and your Q&A will undoubtedly give you an 
opportunity to vigorously defend the U.S. commitment to human 
rights.  You should also stress the importance we attach to 
the advice of European countries in finding practical 
solutions to the difficult problems these detainees have 
posed.  FM Bot has said his Government wants to help us find 
solutions, and we welcome this. 
 
¶6. (C) Having supported the Uruzgan mission, albeit with 
reservations, the PvdA leadership stands as much to lose as 
anyone from reopening the deployment decision as a campaign 
issue.  That said, public support for the mission remains 
weak - a recent poll indicates that 57 percent of the 
population is opposed -- and all parties remain sensitive to 
the potential impact of events on the ground on the 
electorate.  So far, the Dutch have been lucky not to have 
lost any personnel as the direct result of combat, but a 
dramatic increase in Dutch casualties, problems with 
detainees, or clear indications that "reconstruction" 
projects in Uruzgan will not be possible during the Dutch 
deployment could all increase public dissatisfaction with the 
mission while pushing the three largest parties into contrary 
positions.  At the same time, smaller parties such as the 
Progressive Liberals (D-66), Green Left, and the Socialists, 
will continue to exploit public concerns about the mission to 
steal votes from the larger parties. 
 
LEBANON AND THE MID-EAST 
------------------------ 
 
¶7. (C) FM Bot has been a staunch public supporter of 
Israel,s right to defend itself and has, in fact, taken 
significant criticism in doing so.  He has been pushing 
within the GONL for the Dutch to find a way to contribute to 
the UNIFIL mission, and the GONL is now considering 
contributing a frigate in conjunction with the Germans.  The 
Dutch are also emerging as a key donor to the reconstruction 
process; as FM Bot recently told Ambassador Arnall, the Dutch 
"not only make pledges, but also pay up."  On Iran, the Dutch 
are standing firm -- at least compared to many other EU 
partners -- in insisting on Iranian compliance with UNSC 
directives, but are disappointed that the EU-3 process has 
left them out of the loop. 
 
OSCE 
---- 
 
¶8. (C) The Dutch believe our insistence on opposing the 
Kazakh bid for the OSCE presidency is counter-productive - or 
at least not sufficiently subtle.  MFA officials will be 
prepared to discuss this, as well broader issues of OSCE 
reform, in your meetings. 
ARNALL