Sweden and the Netherlands: innovating together | ministries
ministries
Blog entry | 20-05-2022 | Get to know our ambassadors and their work
With his appointment as the Dutch ambassador to Sweden, Bengt van Loosdrecht returns to his mother’s country. Sweden has much more space and nature than the Netherlands and the people are calmer, more polite, he thinks. Although there are also similarities. ‘Sweden and the Netherlands are both innovators. As ambassador, I see it as my mission to bring together the bright minds from both countries to take on the big money of our time.’
After a career that took him to Kigali, New York, New Delhi, Hanoi and Addis Ababa, Bengt van Loosdrecht returned to Stockholm. His mother was Swedish, he spends all summers in the country and he has more family in Sweden than in the Netherlands. Although his family, with children aged 17 and 19, does live in the Netherlands. ‘Of course it is difficult. But a career at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is sometimes difficult to connect with the education of growing children. Fortunately, Stockholm is not far from the Netherlands.’
What do you experience as a big difference between Sweden and the Netherlands?
‘Space and nature are abundant, which is a big difference with the Netherlands, where we have no real nature. This also affects the mentality of the people. Swedes are calmer and more polite than the Dutch. They are more careful with each other; you shouldn’t say what you think right away. Sweden has a tendency towards consensus even more than we do. I like that, but of course it also has consequences, namely that it often even takes a problem to be discussed.’
‘There are more similarities: we have Protestant values. Sweden is number one in the world when it comes to innovation, the Netherlands is in fifth place. We find and strengthen each other in that area.’
‘The first year was quite quiet and lonely for me as an ambassador.’
How was your start in Sweden during the corona pandemic in 2020?
‘The first year was quite quiet and lonely for me as an ambassador. Sweden has had no lockdowns, shops and restaurants are open and there was no obligation to wear a mask. But meetings were limited online at first from embedded. The work with us at the embassy continued, but I’m glad that after a year big ones became big ones.’
You were raised trilingual – Swedish, French and Dutch. Which language is closest to you?
‘I see it this way, that I have three different personalities in me. I switch from Dutch to French from Swedish I change my personality. When I speak French I am really more Southern European in my actions. And the Northern European in me comes out naturally when I speak Swedish. I really like that. It is in any case countries to live in different and to delve into differences in language and customs. You start to adopt more forms of customs and manners in the Netherlands and that is why you open yourself to other ideas. That makes you more flexible.’
‘The most important topic in Sweden at the moment is the threat from Russia. It’s almost nothing else in the media.’
On which themes do Sweden and the Netherlands work together?
The main topic at the moment is the threat from Russia. Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, there have been fears that Russia will also invade Scandinavia. The media is hardly talking about anything else anymore. Sweden and Finland have now applied for two NATO memberships. We follow that discussion closely here.’
‘In addition, economic diplomacy is one of my most important genomes. As I said, Sweden and the Netherlands are huge innovative countries, for example when it comes to sustainable energy. Sweden, for example, steel using hydrogen, which carried out a huge CO2 reduction. We work together in the fields of green energy, artificial intelligence, digital transition and life sciences. Sweden and the Netherlands also supply a lot of machines to each other, but I hope that will shift to more sustainable equipment.’
What do you want to achieve as ambassador in Sweden?
‘I see it as my task to bring together the clever minds from Sweden and the Netherlands to find solutions for the major problems of our time. Sweden is a country with many engineers. What they do a lot here is to work together as a government with the business community and knowledge institutions in science parks. These parties work together and also grant each other something. Beautiful things arise there. I have the feeling that the Netherlands can learn.’
‘We recently had a meeting about charging station infrastructure for electric transport. The Netherlands is far in this. That was a very well attended seminar at the embassy. Another example is a large construction fair in Stockholm where thirteen companies from the Netherlands presented themselves with new sustainable building materials. Sweden wants to build many homes over the years, especially in the north, and make those homes sustainable.
How do you relax after a busy period?
‘I cycle a lot. Within fifteen minutes by bike I am in a vast nature reserve outside Stockholm. In addition, I like to photograph. I once completed the Ecole Nationale de la Photographie in Arles. After that, I briefly worked as an assistant to a photographer in Paris. The French government then had a project with many top photographers to map all French landscapes, urban and natural.’
‘Photography is still my creative outlet. At the start of the corona pandemic, I was still living in Ethiopia. All life came to a standstill because of the pandemic. I then started photographing myself in the deserted embassy. I have bundled these self-portraits in a booklet. That sold out very quickly. Apparently people recognized themselves in the feeling of loneliness and cut-off from existence.’
Where would you most like to live after your retirement, in the Netherlands or Sweden?
‘Haha, it’s certainly not that far yet! Who knows where my career will take me next. I think once of the second verse of the Swedish national anthem: ‘I want to live, I want to die in the north’. I can feel that sentence. I think you have my answer with that.’