As the European Union spars over an emergency economic package for countries reeling from the COVID-19 pandemic, the Dutch have revived their image of thriftiness by refusing to support a plea by southern members to take on collective debt.
FILE PHOTO: Dutch Finance Minister Wopke Hoekstra attends a joint news conference with French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire at the Bercy Finance Ministry in Paris, France, March 1, 2019. REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes/File Photo
A French presidency official expressed frustration over the the Dutch holding up the deal so far, saying it “was blocked by a single country, the Netherlands.” “I am willing to help you put out the fire, but I don’t want to take over your mortgage,” Lubach said, adding that while Hoekstra might be irritating, he had a “fair point”.
The Hague is now openly clashing with Rome over joint debt and conditions for access to the emergency European Stability Mechanism credit lines. “Italy says ‘we want the ESM money, but without conditions’ and the Dutch are saying: ‘yeah, right!’,” Lubach said. “We want to help, but we don’t want to go broke!”The fact that the issue is prime TV fodder goes a long way to explaining how the Netherlands has become the bloc’s “bad cop” opposing the kind of financial burden-sharing that its neighbours to the south say is needed to stave off an economic meltdown.
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