The Netherlands and Ukraine: an ambiguous relationship
Prime Minister Mark Rutte is going on a political visit to Ukraine for the first time in his life as Prime Minister. Together with Minister Wopke Hoekstra of Foreign Affairs, he will be in Kiev on Tuesday 1 February for consultations with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. On the way back they make a stopover in Moldova.
Prime Minister Rutte in conversation with President Putin, a year before the MH17 disaster. Photo WikimediaCommons.
An official trip to Ukraine had been on the agenda for some time. The looming conflict with Russia has now accelerated planning. According to Rutte, the possible supply of defensive weapons, which Ukraine has requested, is not yet on the agenda. It’s too early for that. ‘The Netherlands has said: we really want to look at that seriously’, but ‘that will really take a while’, he said Rutte on his flatter from Friday 28 January. At the end of last year, the Dutch government did not want to think about, for example, anti-tank weapons and cyber specialists for Ukraine. But the fact that the new cabinet is now prepared has to do with the ‘extraordinary concern for further training towards the border’ with Ukraine, according to Rutte.
The Netherlands could proceed with such arms supplies because Ukraine is an ‘enhanced opportunity partner’ of NATO. With this status, the Atlantis alliance supports Ukraine in fundamental reforms, including in the armed forces. take exercises. participate in NATO exercises The alliance is preparing for the start of the ‘recent cyber attack on Ukraine extra cooperation in the field of cyber’, Minister Hoekstra wrote in a foreign week earlier in a statement. letter to the House of Representatives.
Ukraine referendum result in 2016: red in majority no, green in majority yes.
The Netherlands has had an ambivalent relationship with Ukraine for eight years. But despite expressed interests and mutual agreement, Prime Minister Rutte has been around for the past twelve years, not after the MH17 crash in 2014, nor after the Dutch Ukraine referendum in 2016. To this summary. Conversely, President Petro Poroshenko of Ukraine has visited the Netherlands since the Russian annexation of Crimea and military intervention in the Donbas. In the autumn of 2015 he visited Leiden University.
Trade: negative balance for the Netherlands
From an economic point of view, Ukraine is of limited significance for the Netherlands. Based on the recent figures for 2021, mutual trade amounts to more than 3 billion euros. With a difference of approximately 0.75 billion euros between imports and exports, that balance was negative for the Netherlands in 2021. The Netherlands is one of the ten most important export countries for Ukraine. With 2 billion in exports, the Netherlands is a small country with neighboring Hungary. Those goods exist for about half from and living animals and for a quarter of it produced and developed. The Netherlands only figures around 15 on the list of import countriesthe place, along with states like Lithuania and Japan. Half consists of machines and transport equipment, chemical products and food products.
Of the two largest former Soviet republics of the past, Russia (more than 140 million inhabitants) is considerably more relevant for the Netherlands than Ukraine (more than 40 million). Trade back and forth with Russia amounts to about EUR 30 billion on an annual basis. That trade balance has been met with more than 11 billion dollars, which is also the case for the Netherlands.
MH17: shared interests
The crash with the Malaysian passenger plane MH17, which was shot down on 17 July 2014 with a BUK missile of the Russian armed forces, has brought the Netherlands and the Netherlands closer together. Soon after the disaster, Kyiv agreed that the international and criminal investigations would not be led by the Ukrainian police and Attorney General, but by the Dutch Safety Board and the Public Prosecution Service.
Although the Dutch judicial authorities were not always pleased with the way their colleagues in Ukraine worked – the government in Kiev, for example, has one of the most important witnesses in its possession, the separatist Volodymyr Tsemach from the Donbas, in a prisoner swap with Moscow in 2019. transfer to Russia – both countries have on balance. Double-checked evidence from the Ukrainian Criminal Investigation Service and the State Security Service (SBOE) has also been included in the summons against the four suspects who have been on trial in the criminal proceedings before the court of The Hague since March 2020.
Ukraine referendum: mistrust
Almost two years after the MH17 disaster, bilateral relations suffered a blow as a result of the referendum held in the Netherlands on the EU’s 2014 treaty with Ukraine.
This agreement was the commitment of the Maydan movement in Ukraine in 2013/2014. Students and later other citizens took to the streets at the end of November 2013 in protest against the decision of then President Viktor Yanukovych not to conclude an association agreement with the EU after political pressure and financial resources from Vladimir Putin. Two months earlier in September of that year, after much deliberation, his government had announced that it was intent on doing just that. This breached promise sparked a wider-spread protest in Ukraine, which led to the fall and flight of Yanukovych at the end of February 2014.
Ukraine campaign team of Harry van Bommel (middle with red tie), then a Member of Parliament for the SP. Photo Facebook.
The Netherlands was the only agreement country within the EU regarding an agreement to settle a political controversy over Ukraine as an international partner. In the referendum, which corresponded to a majority of 61 percent against the political trade agreement with Ukraine. The House of Representatives only ratified the agreement after Prime Minister Rutte had stipulated in Brussels a few earlier, as the treaty would not be a stepping stone for unitary membership of the EU, nor would it lead to military cooperation between the EU and Ukraine. Although these do not have any meaning of the treaty, the attitude of the Netherlands in Ukraine was experienced as a blow to it.
At the level of government leaders, there were no collaborative visits. Rutte’s journey now puts an end to that passivity.