Before the Dutch parliamentary elections in 2012, I had high
hopes for the current Dutch Finance Minister and chairman of the Euro-group,
Jeroen Dijsselbloem.
I saw this prominent PvdA (Dutch labour) member as an
intelligent, gifted and sympathetic politician, who seemed less ‘slick’ and
more reliable than the fast and smooth talking party-leader Diederik Samsom.
That was the reason that I gave my vote to him.
Unfortunately, the first year of Jeroen Dijsselbloem as
Finance Minister and chairman of the Euro-group gave me some very mixed
feelings.
Positive:
- he showed decisiveness while nationalizing
SNS Reaal, in order to prevent a default of this Dutch bank;
- Also in the Cyprus case, he showed a gutsy approach that initiated a new road ahead for the handling of defaulting banks: not at the expense of the European tax-payers alone, but partially at the expense of the large depositholders too;
Negative:
- In the
same Cyprus case, Dijsselbloem could not take away the impression – set
by PM Mark Rutte – that the Cypriot banks had been treated differently than earlier
(nearly) defaulting banks, as a consequence of the fact that many Russian
people had their money stashed away there. “We don’t want to pay for you, because we
don’t like you” does not sound like an objective and thorough decision;
- Dijsselbloem also made a bad impression, when he blamed his
predecessor Jan Kees de Jager for the way that the latter had treated the Rabobank-Robeco
bonus case. “On top of things” were not the first words that came into
mind.
- His last blunder [to these eyes - EL] was, when Dijsselbloem skipped the annual meeting of the IMF in October – in his role as chairman of the Euro-group – in order to glue the Dutch annual budget together. The fact that the Cabinet succeeded with this budget shortly after, does not change the fact that Dijsselbloem should have been present in New York.
For the rest, neither the domestic actions of ‘Dutch finance
minister’ Jeroen Dijsselbloem, nor the foreign actions of ‘Chairman of the
Euro-group’ Dijsselbloem made a lasting impression in 2013. His performance
over all seemed moderate: not bad, not good, just moderate…
That was until last week, when unfortunately the
narrow-minded, resentful and politically clumsy Jeroen Dijsselbloem popped up
again.
This political clumsiness started last Tuesday, 19 November, when Dijsselbloem
snarled at Rabobank economists that “they
better should keep their mouths shut this week…”.
This was a nasty, “below-the-belt” remark upon:
- a negative report from
Rabobank’s macro-economist team about the
probable anemic Dutch economic growth in 2014 – on which I fullheartedly agree!
- Libor-gate, in which Rabobank had been massively involved;
Of course, the latter event was something in which the Rabobank
economists were not involved at all and, on top of that, what they could have done
nothing about….
This is equal to blaming the tellers of a bank for the circumstance
that their CEO is a crook.
“Jeroen D., for all
your nonsense” was the brief,
but lethal reaction of BNR News Radio’s “favorite perma-bear” Kees de
Kort, after the outburst of Jeroen Dijsselbloem: “You can state this, when you ‘live in a condo in Simpleville’, but not
when you are the Dutch Finance Minister!”.
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| Kees de Kort, macro-economist of BNR Newsradio Picture copyright of : Ernst Labruyère Click to enlarge |
The second political nosedive of Jeroen Dijsselbloem came in
his role as chairman of the Euro-group, when he tried to teach the French a
lesson. Het Financieele Dagblad (FD) wrote about this story and the follow-up by
France. Here are the pertinent snips:
Dutch finance minister
and chairman of the Euro-group Jeroen Dijsselbloem thinks that the European
Commission should force individual countries into reforms.
Only when a country
makes rock-solid agreements about this, it should get more time to get its
annual budget in order. This is stated by Dijsselbloem in an interview with
some financial newspapers. Indirectly, he criticises Euro-Commissioner Olli
Rehn with these remarks.
Rehn gave France two more years to reduce its
budget-deficit, without adding ironclad conditions to this agreement. Nowadays, France is reluctant to carry through economic and political reforms.
Especially Germany is
very worried about the tempo in which France reforms its economy and reduces
its deficits. “France should do more and the country itself knows that too” was
also the opinion of Jeroen Dijsselbloem.
Irrespective of
whether Dijsselbloem was right or not, he makes again the impression of
being "his Master’s voice" for Germany, heavily irritating France in the
process.
And to make things even worse, he still seems in favour of
the mindless austerity that caused the Euro-zone so much economic harm in the
past, just like his ‘boss’ Mark Rutte.
On top of that, Dijsselbloem is heavily opposing to the further
integration of Europe and the European financial industry, through the formation
of a European budget and banking union.
This, in spite of the fact that such
unifications would make the Euro-zone and the European financial industry much
more resilient against financial shocks.
The French, represented by French
Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici, reacted annoyedly. Again the FD:
The French Finance
Minister Pierre Moscovici thinks that Jeroen Dijselbloem, as chairman of the
Euro-group, should not take an outspoken stance in issues in which there is no broad
consensus yet.
“I don’t want to start a controversy with the minister, but as
far as I’m concerned, the chairman should build on a broad consensus”,
according to Moscovici, after the Finance ministers of the Euro-zone had
discussed their annual budgets.
Moscovici reacted to
an interview of Dijsselbloem with a.o. this newspaper, in which the Dutch
Finance minister opposed to the plans to let the Euro-zone have its own annual budget.
“Dijsselbloem made it all too clear that he does not fully agree, or should I
say, does not agree at all with the French position. I repeated one more time
that France attaches value to an ubiquitous and ambitious banking union and
better economic guidance for the Euro-zone. This includes a permanent chairman
of the Euro-group”. Dijsselbloem is also
opposed against that.
In order to reinforce the stability of the Euro-zone, it
should get a buffer fund or a budget facility, in the eyes of France. “Solidarity should not be an
empty concept”, according to Moscovici.
Again, Dijsselbloem showed here that he misses the political
“Fingerspitzengefühl” (roughly translated “Spider sense”) to be a good chairman
of the Euro-group, like Jean-Claude Juncker was before him.
Too often, you
think that you hear Dutch PM Mark Rutte or German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble
talk, when Dijsselbloem speaks. Instead of being a chairman for all Euro-zone countries,
Dijsselbloem seems to be a chairman for himself and his bosses, chancellor Angela
Merkel and Mark Rutte.
Especially the French are allergic to such behaviour: they
consider this disrespectful, as it seemingly denies the importance and power of
France, the second-largest economy in the Euro-zone and one of the
diplomatically most capable countries in the world. In my humble opinion, the French do have a point.
Yes, you could argue that France – as an economy – went
through twenty years of anemic growth. The country only had three years with
more than 2% growth (amidst the internet bubble) during this period, as the
following chart by Eurostat shows:
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| The French economic growth 1993 - 2003 Data courtesy of: Eurostat Chart by: Ernst Labruyère Click to enlarge |
And people could rightfully argue that the French should do much
more to reform their economy, in order to make it grow harder.
However, in spite of all the undeniable high-tech developments
and economic achievements of the country during the last decades, France is a
country where grandeur, centuries-old traditions, cultural inheritance,
enjoyment of life (‘joie de vivre’) and craftsmanship are still extremely
important.
The French love their traditions and are willing to battle
for every inch of them, even when this paralyses the country for a long time.
Everybody, who saw the French strike in the past, understands that it is an extremely
hard task to reform this country.
And to be honest, these traditions and craftsmanship are exactly
the reason why so many Europeans – including yours truly – adore this beautiful
country, with its astonishing landscapes and nature, wonderful food and drinks
and its sometimes peculiar, but nevertheless adorable people. When France would
stop to be France, it would be missed by many people in the world.
French president François Hollande could indeed do more to
help the economy of the country, but I seriously doubt whether ruthlessly
reforming the French economy, following a neoliberal agenda, is the answer that the country is waiting for. In case of France their are no easy answers and instantly successful recipes.
And Jeroen Dijsselbloem…?
After his domestic and foreign
nosedives of last week, he should be worried about the follow-up of his brief
career as Finance Minister and chairman of the Euro-group: he seems to already have lost
all credit from the French and probably from many, many more people inside and outside The Netherlands.
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