‘The Netherlands must reinvent itself geopolitically’
Ukrainian President Zelensky addressed the Dutch and Belgian parliaments today. It is remarkable that the Belgian Prime Minister De Croo promised Ukraine direct weapons. He also thanks the Netherlands for sending weapons. ‘We must supply more weapons’, VVD MEP Bart Groothuis told BNR De Wereld. ‘The Netherlands must reinvent itself in the geopolitical field.’
According to Groothuis, these are the short-range missiles and the Spikes, the Israeli long-range anti-tank missiles that can disable a tank at a distance of one and a half kilometres. According to Groothuis, the problem is that Israel does not want to issue an export license for this. According to the parliamentarian, this has to do with the deal that Israel and Russia have made in Syria, namely that Israel provides the Russians with information, illegal influence of Hezbollah and everything there.
Groothuis says he hopes that the US will soon sit down with Israel, the last country according to the room it has in this regard. He refers to Turkey that maintains good relations with Russia and still supplies drones to the export.
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wish list
Zelenski has a wish list for every country he addresses. Is what he wants real? And what exactly does the Netherlands deliver? Groothuis cannot say anything about this, parliamentarians are bound by secrecy about this. He has already supplied many countries and that the coalition is providing ‘interesting weapons’ to Ukraine’, which is not contrary to the UN charter that states that countries are able to supply weapons to other countries that have been victims of attacks and that are in are in self-defense mode.
reinvent
Do all those speeches yield Zelensky anything? When asked, the Groothuis says that it is the pressure on parliament: what about the? In the Netherlands, the beginning of the discussion has flared up about the land registry that has not made an inventory of Russian real estate. About this, Groothuis says that the Netherlands is not yet operating as a state, ‘it will take a while how we have to organize ourselves. The Netherlands must reinvent itself in the geopolitical field. We’ve been a BV for far too long.’
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