Delivering the prestigious HJ Schoo lecture in Amsterdam on 4 September 2025, Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever has outlined his vision for a stronger and more prosperous Europe. His fully translated speech can be read below. The annual lecture is hosted by Elsevier Weekblad.
In his speech, De Wever puts forward his ideas for urgent key reforms in three EU policy areas: migration policy, the internal market and strategic autonomy.
Ladies and gentlemen
Good evening!
How wonderful it is to be in the Netherlands.
How wonderful it is to be here with you.
Today, you have made the effort to come and listen to the Prime Minister of the country that has been known as Belgium since the secession of 1830.
You could have stayed at home and watched television, but you chose to be here.
I do not know if that was the wise choice. You will be able to judge that for yourselves later.
When EW – I am no longer allowed to say Elsevier – invited me to give the HJ Schoo lecture, I did not hesitate for a moment.
After all, I noticed that I am giving the seventeenth lecture at this illustrious gathering.
There are no coincidences. This can only be an irresistible nod to the Seventeen Provinces – the exciting and turbulent years in which the identity and unity of our regions were gently carved in marble. In fact, the pioneer of this, Philip the Good, is the father of our fatherlands, and not William of Orange.
I was recently in The Hague for the NATO summit and during a radio interview Sven Kockelmann coaxed some melancholy out of me about the separation of the Netherlands – which is not so difficult, as a Pulitzer Prize is not on the horizon for Sven.
Equally predictably, I received some sour reactions in my own country, especially from Walloon socialists.
In their eyes, it is “scandalous” or even “completely crazy” to say that it is and remains my very personal opinion that the break-up of the Netherlands as a result of the Eighty Years’ War is the greatest disaster that has ever befallen us.
Perhaps they should consult Edward Anseele, the socialist leader who was one of the founders of the Belgian Workers’ Party.
Anseele considered the Belgian Revolution to be a ‘useless revolution of priests and burghers’ and a ‘most shameful crime’ which – and I quote – ‘created a border on the map, a major obstacle to the fraternisation of two children of the same tribe’.
My predecessor as mayor of Antwerp and briefly prime minister, Camille Huysmans, also a socialist, called the Revolution “une faute [qui] a détruit un Etat magnifique” (a mistake that destroyed a magnificent state).
I was also criticised for quoting the beautiful verses of Antwerp poet Theodoor van Ryswyck:
Here, and on the other side,
There and here is the Netherlands.
Van Ryswyck did suffer from syphilis, a disease that also affected his brain. The poor man was driven mad and died in a psychiatric institution. It is a fate I hope to avoid – I do not have syphilis, but I do have a high-risk job in Brussels’ Wetstraat. (For my mental health, I mean, not for syphilis.)
In any case, my love for the Netherlands is a public secret – and I am also married to a Dutch woman.
However, closer cooperation between the historic Netherlands – the current Benelux – is not a romantic dream or nostalgic thought for me, but a political objective that is necessary for our future.
The desire for close cooperation and integration with the Netherlands is, incidentally, explicitly and concretely enshrined in the latest coalition agreements in Flanders:
To work together to protect the prosperity of our Low Countries by joining forces in the areas of culture, education and the economy.
To increase our power and influence within Europe together.
And to use this power and influence together to strengthen the forces of peace and freedom in the world.
Belgian prime minister makes pitch to fix a ‘worn out’ Europe https://t.co/N5m4lnxHQC pic.twitter.com/6XVjOh19Se
— Euractiv (@Euractiv) September 6, 2025
Ladies and gentlemen
You read it in the announcement and you have probably already figured it out: today, I want to take you on a thought experiment about the state of our Low Countries.
To do so, I will elaborate on the international geopolitical situation, which unfortunately does not make anyone happy. But contrary to what you might expect from me, I am going to strike a cautiously positive note on this.
But you will have to wait a little longer for that, because I want to start with a historical nod. A nod to resilience and tenacity. And that takes us back two centuries in time. I will take you to – where else – my own proud city on the Scheldt: Antwerp.
Antwerp, from where William of Orange once led the Revolt, and where his wife Charlotte de Bourbon lies buried in the cathedral. There we also find the mausoleum of another Bourbon, Isabella, the wife of Charles the Bold. Incidentally, the beautiful statues from her mausoleum were stolen during the Iconoclastic Fury and ended up in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam in an improper manner. So if you were still wondering what to get the speaker as a gift…
After the Orange Restoration of 1787, thousands of Dutch patriots fled to safer places. Many of these political refugees ended up in Antwerp. One of them was the versatile writer Gerrit Paape.
In the period after the Revolt, Antwerp had economically declined to the level of a provincial town. But culturally, the city had grown into the northernmost nerve centre of the Counter-Reformation, a devout Catholic showcase on the border between Belgica Foedarata, the Republic, and Belgica Regia, the Spanish and later Austrian Netherlands.
Our proud patriot Gerrit Paape thus found himself in a city that boasted Baroque churches, overwhelming altars and an abundance of statues of saints. The streets of Antwerp were – and still are – kindly watched over by hundreds of Madonnas.
It will come as no surprise that Gerrit Paape had little good to say about it. He criticised the narrow-minded superstition of many Antwerp residents. But it is his impressions of what the city looked like that remain most memorable. In his travelogue, he noted that Antwerp was “an old, dilapidated and dead city”.
“The dwellings are not suitable for clean-living Dutch people. The rooms are crude, irregular and old-fashioned. Everywhere you find these rooms decorated with furniture that in Holland would be chopped up for firewood.”
Paape may have given an exaggerated opinion due to the bleak prospects in a precarious political situation. But we can still believe him.
I will bring in another witness: Napoleon Bonaparte. On 18 July 1803, then still First Consul, he visited the city on the Scheldt for the first time.
He had grand plans, as he had the ambition to turn Antwerp into a safe harbour and build a war fleet there, a pistolet bracqué au coeur de l’Angleterre. Antwerp is a seaport, but it is located eighty kilometres inland. This was an incredible opportunity for the French war machine.
In the morning, Napoleon was given an extensive tour of the city and the port. In the afternoon, there was a reception with all the Antwerp dignitaries. They may have expected sweet words, but they were in for a surprise. Napoleon’s judgement was honest but harsh.
“J’ai parcouru votre ville: je n’y ai trouvé que des décombres et des ruines. Elle ressemble à peine à une ville européenne, et j’ai cru me trouver ce matin dans une ville d’Afrique. Tout y est à faire.” Since you all like to drink ’judorange” here, I assume you all understand enough French.
Everything had to be done in that seemingly African city. Quays, docks, port facilities, shipyards: Antwerp had been neglected for two centuries after our separation. But Napoleon promised improvement. When he was finished with Antwerp, he explained, the city would become a ‘ville de commerce de premier rang’, rivalling ‘Londres, Marseille et… Amsterdam’.
Since a lack of decisiveness is the last thing Napoleon can be accused of, the city soon became a major construction site. Napoleon thus became the father of modern Antwerp, of our current world port. A port that can indeed rival, not the small port of Amsterdam – as Napoleon still thought – but its competitor Rotterdam.
A port that continued to flourish thanks to the efforts of King William I, a legacy that no Southern Dutch person can dispute.
All this bore fruit. When the Utrecht teacher Christiaan Clemens visited Antwerp in 1840, he spoke of “a large and beautiful city”.
Victor Hugo, who visited the city three years earlier, referred to it as “une ville admirable”. Hugo also found the city on the Scheldt more beautiful than Ghent, a city that had taken the industrial lead in Flanders at the time and even had more inhabitants than Antwerp – today half as many.
Antwerp thus experienced an incredible revival in the nineteenth century. In the young Belgium, our port developed into the undisputed engine of the entire economy.
Thanks to port expansions and the purchase of the free Scheldt navigation rights, the population doubled and goods transhipment increased by almost 3,000 per cent between 1830 and 1884.
Since then, Antwerp, together with Rotterdam, has grown to become the logistical heart of Europe. Despite heavy scars, our cities survived a devastating and merciless World War. Today, they form the undisputed crossroads of European prosperity.
Resilience and tenacity.
That is in the DNA of the Low Countries.
It is in our tenacious trading spirit and our open view of the world.
And it is in our free-thinking character and our belief in progress.
*
Ladies and gentlemen
Today, those values are under severe pressure.
Europe has been lulled into complacency over the past decades. The end of the Cold War was arrogantly proclaimed as the end of history itself. And now we are being brutally shaken awake.
For too long, Europe has lived under the illusion that the whole world was begging on its knees for liberal democracy and our enlightened freedoms.
We have forgotten that politics is the art of the possible, as Bismarck said, and not of the desirable.
Postmodern Europe has become hypersensitive and morally conceited. In practice, the world view of the postmodern European has much in common with how a nursery school is run.
Everyone must be nice and play nicely together. And if a naughty child hurts another, they must say sorry. A hug solves everything.
*
Ladies and gentlemen
Our break from history is over. The world is not a nursery school.
However much we may dislike it, the world is often not even a pleasant place.
The world is also unrest, discontent, resentment, rancour and brutal violence.
That will not change simply by camping on the moral high ground or sending love into the world with outstretched arms.
Europe is finding it increasingly difficult to present itself as an attractive partner. As the geopolitical situation drifts away from multilateralism and becomes increasingly transactional, Europe has less and less to offer the world.
Green doom-mongering and degrowth are curtailing our belief in progress, but they are also undermining the foundations of our prosperity model.
Our productivity growth is declining, our economy is stagnating, and our engine of prosperity is slowly rusting.
This has severely dented Europe’s power, prestige and influence.
H.J. Schoo himself lamented that we have gradually forgotten the fundamental rules of politics. He complained: ‘Power, the only political category that matters, must not exist in our world.’
All this has turned Europe into a worn-out continent.
It is not yet ‘old, decayed and dead’ over here, as Gerrit Paape described it. But Europe is living on the golden mountains of the past and is paying too little attention to the steep climb that lies ahead. Because we are in danger of falling hopelessly behind.
In the eyes of the United States, Europe is the annoying little brother who goes around pointing his finger at everyone.
In the eyes of China, Europe is increasingly an irrelevant toddler.
And even now, we still do not dare to fully commit to alliances with obvious partners. We have been negotiating free trade with South America for twenty years now, and Mercosur is still not finalised.
Every European politician would do well to dust off Thucydides and reread the Melian Dialogue.
‘The strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must.’
Well, today, we are the weak.
But this is not irreversible. Just as Antwerp rose from an unsightly second-rate city to a world port in the nineteenth century, so too can Europe find its way back on track.
And that is why we must return to what our ancestors did: take care of our prosperity with perseverance and courage. As the Flemish economist Lodewijk De Raet said more than a hundred years ago, we must ‘methodically concern ourselves with our material interests’.
The prosperity we build in this way must serve to gain more power and influence. Power and influence that can then be used to change the world for the better.
We are on the eve of a new Europe. A Europe where we will have to cycle uphill if we want to make something of it. If we do not, we risk falling into the abyss. We have a choice, in the words of William Gladstone, ‘to mend or to end’.
The choice is therefore clear. The answer must be equally clear.
As Bilderdijk wrote:
Ah, the days,
Our plagues,
Dear brothers, are passing.
From this darkness
Rises the splendour
Of a new reign.
*
Ladies and gentlemen
Europe must straighten its back.
And that is why sacred cows must be slaughtered.
The tide must turn.
The coming months and years will be of vital importance for Europe. The difficult times in which international politics and economics find themselves give us the opportunity to take decisive action. We must dare to do so now.
I would like to mention three areas in which Europe must urgently change course.
These are our migration policy, the internal market and strategic autonomy.
*
Ladies and gentlemen
Last Sunday marked ten years since former German Chancellor Angela Merkel made her “Wir schaffen das” statement.
Much has been written about this in recent days, but let me illustrate the impact of those words with a particularly painful example.
In 2006, the Schengen Borders Code provided for the possibility of temporarily reintroducing border controls within the Schengen area.
For ten years, this option was hardly ever used, only 36 times.
Not once did this happen in the context of uncontrolled migration flows.
Not once. Until ‘Wir schaffen das’.
Since 2015, Schengen Member States have invoked this article more than 200 times to protect their borders against massive influxes of illegal migrants.
Ironically, it was Germany itself that claimed the scoop, because just two weeks after ‘Wir schaffen das’, our eastern neighbour introduced controls along the Austrian border to stem the influx.
I am a staunch supporter of the absolute right of a sovereign state to secure its borders in the interests of national and international security.
But uncontrolled migration is a fundamental problem that can only be solved if we regain control of our European external border.
At present, the front door is wide open.
That front door really needs to be closed.
Today, nine EU Member States have introduced border controls. That is one in three Member States.
This fragmentation, with each Schengen country now acting on its own, undermines the foundations of the Schengen Agreement and the European Union.
Meanwhile, the embarrassing lack of control over our external border is making ruthless human traffickers rich, who have clear links to international organised crime and terrorist organisations.
The ongoing migration crisis is also poisoning the political debate and giving extremist tendencies a boost.
As a moderate politician, try explaining to citizens why one in three Belgian prisoners does not have valid residence papers. Or why thousands of migrants, many of whom are illegal or already have a return order, are sleeping on our streets.
We are even struggling to deport illegal criminals. That is why I recently sent an open letter, together with eight other European heads of government, to denounce this situation. An open letter that was the talk of the town in this country. But we really need to tackle this issue.
We need to work towards four clear objectives:
1. We must secure our external borders more strictly and more strongly. Those who manage to physically enter the EU without authorisation should never be granted citizenship. They should never be allowed to make Europe their home. This will break the business model of human traffickers and ensure that illegal flows will stop, as in Australia.
2. We must have uniform entry and return procedures, using our political and economic weight to encourage countries of origin and transit to take responsibility.
3. We need better cooperation between EU Member States in the areas of justice, security and social fraud.
4. And we need strategic partnerships with third countries and solidarity mechanisms within the European Union that take into account the capacity of Member States. We must not pass on problems. That undermines the fundamental values of our Union.
*
Ladies and gentlemen
With the current migration policy, we are shooting ourselves in the foot. That needs to be changed. But let me be clear: we need migration. We need a different migration policy that focuses on legal, active migration.
The European Union has been struggling with a demographic deficit since 2012. If we want to achieve more growth and prosperity, we will therefore have to look at active migration. Migration that strengthens our labour market.
Today, for all intents and purposes, we do not have that. One in three non-EU citizens with a residence permit has come here for family reunification. Only one in five is here for labour migration.
This has consequences. The employment rate of non-EU citizens is significantly lower than that of EU citizens, which is already not high enough. The target of 80 per cent employment is not being met in many EU countries. The Netherlands is achieving this target – congratulations on that – but Belgium, to take just one example, is not yet.
Moreover, the lower employment rate among non-EU nationals reveals a wide gap in the proportion of women from non-EU countries in work. Less than 6 in 10 of them are in work. In Belgium, the figure is even less than half.
The legal migration that we organise today therefore does not sufficiently meet the needs of our labour market.
A new migration model will lead to better opportunities for newcomers, whose talents and experience will contribute more to our prosperity.
It will also lead to more economic growth and a more positive image of migration among our citizens.
That more positive image is really important, because we must not be mistaken: our citizens are particularly hospitable.
Even though all indicators show that public support for the uncontrolled influx of asylum seekers and illegal migrants has been reached, there remains a clear awareness that we need legal, active migration.
The recent migration report by the Social and Cultural Planning Office clearly indicates that there is a large majority in the Netherlands in favour of selective labour migration.
This is also the case in Belgium. A similar study by Randstad, conducted by labour market expert Jan Denys in collaboration with Professor Mark Elchardus, indicates that six out of ten Belgians are in favour of labour migration to keep our economy running.
If we look at the requirements our citizens impose on newcomers, it boils down to what we call inclusive nationalism. We define the values of our identity as responsible citizenship, knowledge of our language and respect for our values. These are not insurmountable obstacles, but recipes for a dignified existence in a close-knit society.
In the Dutch report, more than 7 out of 10 Dutch people say that someone does not have to be born here to earn Dutch citizenship.
So you can become Flemish or Dutch. Everything else is fate. (Just kidding!)
Those who advocate open borders or exclusive, ethnic nationalism are therefore out of touch with how the average citizen feels about migration and what our economy needs.
Such political forces offer us no prospects for the future. But if, on the other hand, we work on a new migration model, it will benefit our citizens, benefit newcomers, and benefit our prosperity.
*
Ladies and gentlemen
If we in Europe succeed in transforming our migration model and fully commit to economic growth, we must ensure that our internal market is given every opportunity to flourish.
This is precisely an area where walls within the European Union urgently need to be torn down. Our European Single Market must finally become a truly unified market, where work and business encounter as few barriers as possible. A market that promotes fair competition and stimulates innovation.
In recent months, there has been a great deal of talk about the tariffs and the accompanying agreements that the European Commission finally concluded with the United States at the end of July.
Anyone who thought there was an alternative is deluding themselves. We are completely alone in this. On the day of the tariff deal with the US, the World Trade Organisation, the international institution that is supposed to watch over fair free trade like a hawk, merely issued a press release announcing the appointment of a new Deputy Director-General.
Since 2019, the United States has been blocking the appointment of judges to the WTO Appellate Body – even under President Biden. The trade dispute institution that could rule on the current protectionist frenzy is dead in the water. The foundations of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade are gathering dust somewhere.
So for those who still thought that outrage would be the answer to the trade deal, I have a sobering message. No one is coming to save us.
I am firmly convinced that protectionism has no future in the world. I know this because our past clearly shows that a free and fair market is the only way to achieve sustainable growth, technological innovation and maximum prosperity for as many people as possible.
Over the past two hundred years, extreme poverty has been decimated. Life expectancy and prosperity have risen impressively. And technological progress has contributed to incredible growth. We owe all this to free, fair trade.
Protectionism is the wrong choice, leading to mistrust between governments, unstable markets and uncertainty for businesses. Everyone who works, saves or does business pays the price.
And so this protectionist tension in the world is a legitimate concern for citizens and governments. But it is always good, as the Antwerp poet Alice Nahon said, to “look into your own heart in the evening, before going to sleep”.
Approximately 60% of total exports from EU countries go to other Member States. Our internal market is our most important trading destination.
And the existing restrictions on that internal market are nothing short of shocking.
Let’s put the regrettable 15% tariff on European goods to the United States into perspective.
Trade between European Member States still faces numerous barriers, from divergent procurement rules to inadequate infrastructure. According to a study by the IMF this year, these amount to an equivalent tariff of no less than 44 per cent for goods within the EU. For services, the figure is as high as 110 per cent.
If we compare this with the trade barriers that exist between states in the US, the equivalent tariff there is estimated to be only 15%. If we were to succeed in bringing the trade barriers between EU Member States down to the same level as in the United States, we would promote productivity and fair competition, resulting in more choice and lower prices.
Last year’s much-discussed Draghi report concluded that the EU’s economic activity could be as much as 10 per cent higher if the existing barriers to the internal market were removed.
If we express the potential productivity gains in the European Union from that report in euros, it amounts to almost €1.7 trillion in wealth growth.
Growth that we are simply missing out on. Every year.
That is utter madness. We are in a trade war with ourselves.
We must tear down the walls that restrict our internal market.
We have all the means at our disposal.
1. In Europe, we must simplify the regulatory framework and avoid red tape. The Commission is working on this with omnibus packages, but we really must seize the uncertain times we live in to take drastic action in this area.
2. In this spirit, Member States must not make the mistake of gold plating by unnecessarily supplementing European regulations with stricter national legislation. Gold plating is a fausse bonne idée, which only makes rules more complex and less transparent. Small and medium-sized enterprises are the main victims of gold plating. In the Belgian coalition agreement, we have therefore explicitly committed ourselves not to do this.
3. We must unify our services market. In sectors such as telecommunications, energy supply and finance, there are still significant barriers that we need to remove.
4. We must work on labour mobility, which is currently too restricted by bureaucratic concerns, for example for temporary cross-border work assignments. We must also better harmonise professional qualifications, training certificates and cross-border licences for professions.
5. And we must finally dare to work on a Capital Markets Union: we are not mobilising our capital sufficiently. A genuine Capital Markets Union promotes financial security and investment.
Lowering internal barriers and achieving a genuine European Single Market with a Capital Markets Union will lead to more jobs and investment, higher productivity, lower inflation, less inequality and higher household spending.
*
Ladies and gentlemen
A resilient and robust single European market will also make our companies more competitive and attract talent. And that is necessary.
Over the past 50 years, there has not been a single new European company with a market capitalisation of more than €100 billion. Start-ups find too little venture capital. Figures from the European Central Bank indicate that three times more venture capital is available in the United States in relation to GDP than in the EU. And when European start-ups grow and become unicorns, almost one in three chooses to move their headquarters outside the EU – the majority to the US. (Anecdote: to get a higher return on my savings, I was given financial advice: invest the money in a tracker on the stock market… in the US).
Meanwhile, we have been technologically overtaken by the US and China.
On the other side of the Atlantic, they are making great strides in this area. They are also attracting our talent and that of others to capitalise on this.
Do you know where the current CEOs of Alphabet/Google, Microsoft, IBM and Adobe were born and raised?
India.
And at the head of tech giant Nvidia is Jensen Huang, born in Taipei. Huang did not speak a word of English when he arrived in New York at the age of nine. Now he runs the most valuable company in the world.
They embody the kind of talent that is given too few opportunities to grow in Europe. Where Europe creates too little space for it. And the consequences are commensurate.
The combined market value of the five tech companies I just mentioned is twice that of the 40 largest French and 40 largest German listed companies combined, and for convenience’s sake, you can add the entire Dutch GDP to that.
Don’t get me wrong. Europe has great assets. Our population is well educated and we have leading knowledge institutions. We have a rich entrepreneurial tradition and highly innovative companies. We are the logical logistical heart of the world. And we have made enormous strides in the field of sustainable development.
But these are not laurels to rest on. They are a basis for doing better. Much better.
Deepening our internal market and breaking down the walls that hinder our growth will give our European companies opportunities to grow further. A fully-fledged Capital Markets Union must provide the financial oxygen for this.
And in order to firmly anchor this economic advance and protect it from external shocks, we must work on a third important area: our strategic autonomy.
*
Ladies and gentlemen
Green masochism has become an obstacle to the extraction of rare earth metals in Europe and, paradoxically, threatens the ecological transition of our economy.
Every mining project in Europe – from the Iberian Peninsula to Scandinavia – that aims to produce the critical raw materials needed to build the sustainable technology of tomorrow is bound to encounter an avalanche of objections from all kinds of activists.
In Castile-La Mancha, where people should realise that fighting windmills is a foolish choice, the regional government even scrapped a mining project a few years ago on the basis of a negative opinion from… China, a country that itself has a firm grip on global production of rare earth metals.
In recent years, the European Union has put in place a policy to promote the sustainable production and recycling of critical raw materials on its own soil. That is a good thing. But that policy still needs to be translated into reality. Control over critical raw materials is crucial for our strategic autonomy.
And there are also opportunities in other areas. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has made Europe realise that our Union has some serious catching up to do in terms of defence and that our defence industry must finally be placed on the same footing of strategic autonomy.
This is not just about a strengthened and European-consolidated defence industry per se, but also about vigilance among our population and further integration of our military capacity. Our countries are setting a good example in this regard, as the Belgian and Dutch navies will celebrate the 30th anniversary of their extensive cooperation next year. More of that, please.
The geopolitical crisis on our eastern border has also made us wake up to our energy supplies. In Belgium, I have succeeded in reversing the disastrous nuclear phase-out. The security and affordability of our energy is a fundamental necessity for our economy and our families.
Technological neutrality is paramount in this regard, without taboos. After all, the EU is still 55.5% dependent on imports for its energy.
Energy security is particularly crucial for our industry. And despite postmodern opinion chique, our industry is not a relic of the past. It is essential for a prosperous future.
Critical raw materials, defence, energy and industry are the areas par excellence in which the European Union must prioritise extensive and cross-border cooperation.
But we must not confuse autonomy with autarky. When we talk about strategic autonomy, we are indeed talking about open strategic autonomy. In certain areas, certainly with regard to critical raw materials but also with regard to energy, Europe is in dire need of strong trading partners. That is why Mercosur is so important.
In the current geopolitical context, there are third countries that are begging for reliable, stable partnerships that will free them from the unwelcome American-Chinese steamroller.
I also remain a fervent advocate of Atlantic cooperation. The changing world view in Washington may be a wake-up call for us, but it should never cloud our view that the United States is our natural ally. That open view must strengthen our resolve to be a strong partner on the world stage.
Europe truly has everything it takes to be that partner and thereby strengthen its own strategic autonomy.
*
Ladies and gentlemen
We must “dare to look into our own hearts” and take decisive action. We must look beyond the shadows of our own interests.
That is why I will continue to insist on the three fundamental areas we need to work on: a new migration model, a truly single market, and open strategic autonomy that can forge strong partnerships.
These three areas go hand in hand. They are crucial to our future.
Let us therefore polish up the notion of “common interest”.
Because we need to change course.
I have told you that Europe must become more resilient and more robust. To achieve this, we must focus on prosperity and growth.
Because only that will give us the weight, the power and the influence to play on the world stage. And to change the world for the better.
Green doom-mongers and extremist beliefs will not help us in this. What will help us is a thorough realism that puts our common interest first.
The good news is that we in the Low Countries can take the lead.
To reinforce this, I would like to conclude this evening by championing Article 350 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, which gives the Benelux the opportunity to integrate more quickly and more deeply than the European Union itself.
The first important milestones have been set, including in the areas of police cooperation and diploma recognition. Other Member States are watching this with great interest.
But the possibilities are so enormous and so crucial that we should make “Article 350” a slogan. In the areas of migration, the internal market and strategic autonomy, our interests are so closely intertwined that it would actually be negligent not to do so. Those who work, save and do business will be the first to reap the benefits.
Europe is no longer an empire. But our continent can become an emporium: the trading centre of the world. We can show the world that we are open for business.
And what better location for the beating heart of that emporium than the Low Countries?
Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg can set the tone and gain a street-length lead over the rest of Europe.
The Benelux can take political leadership and give business a boost. Together, we are already the fourth largest economy in the EU. Together, we can become so much more.
I am reminded of the words of Charles Rogier, one of the leading figures during the Belgian Revolution and subsequently a long-time head of government.
In 1866, he looked back on the separation of the Netherlands and wrote: “On pouvait encore créer une union tellement intime que, malgré l’existence de deux trônes et de deux dynasties, il n’existât en quelque sorte qu’une séparation administrative entre les deux pays.”
In doing so, Mr Rogier planted, ladies and gentlemen, nothing more and nothing less than the seed of a confederation.
Well, just like Rogier, I am in favour of an ‘intimate union’ between our countries.
And so I wish you a fruitful election period with much debate and reflection. In the hope that the three areas I discussed with you this evening, as well as the idea of an ‘intimate union’ between the Benelux countries, will be taken to heart by the next Dutch government.
It is not my place to interfere in the judgement of the Dutch people, but I hope that you will opt for responsibility and statesmanship, because that is what we really need right now. Do not take it so far that you eventually have to look to your southern neighbour for a stable government…
For I fervently hope that our excellent relations will be continued and deepened after the elections with the next Dutch government. There is work to be done, opportunities beckon, but they must be seized.
My door will always be open. And then perhaps we can once again sing the following verses by Bilderdijk at the top of our voices:
Holland is growing again
Holland is flourishing again
Holland, risen from its ashes
Will once again be our Holland.
I hope so, and I thank you.
