Wopke Hoekstra has an important job interview with Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission. The current Dutch foreign minister and commissioner appointed by the Netherlands to replace Frans Timmermans (the former vice-president of the commission) has an appointment to discuss his future responsibilities on Tuesday, August 29.
Theoretically, he should inherit the commission's climate action portfolio from Timmermans, but not its vice-presidency in charge of the Green Pact, which has gone to Slovakia's Maros Sefcovic. Unless von der Leyen decides to propose another portfolio, forcing a reshuffle of the executive.
However, this appointment has caused quite a stir, both in the Netherlands and in Europe. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte declined to comment on his government's decision, but the appointment of Hoekstra did not make everyone happy, particularly within the Reform Party (D66, liberal left), the most pro-European of the Dutch parties. As the second-largest party in the cabinet which has recently resigned (legislative elections will be held in November) it had hoped that one of its own would succeed Timmermans.
"A large number of factors came into play" in the appointment of the foreign minister, said Rutte. One of them, it is said in The Hague, was the strong insistence of the president of the European Commission, who wanted to see a Christian Democrat, a member of the European People's Party (EPP) like herself, manage this important portfolio. For some months now, the EPP group has been blocking the texts of the Green Pact, which aims to make Europe a carbon-neutral continent by 2050. After attempting to scuttle the law on nature restoration, it is now trying to weaken future legislation on pesticide use, which is still under negotiation.
If approved by parliament and the council, Hoekstra will represent the European Union at the next Conference of the Parties (COP28) on climate change in Dubai in November, and by early 2024 will have to outline Europe's climate ambitions for 2040. A daunting task for a leader who, in 2021, during a debate, criticized the "dogmas" and "ideological biases" of the leader of the Dutch environmental left.
In the European Parliament, the first reactions were harsh against Hoekstra, who previously worked for Shell (where he began his career in 2002) and consulting firm McKinsey. The Social Democrat (S&D) group criticized him in no uncertain terms. "Wopke Hoekstra became known to the European public thanks to controversial statements made during the Covid-19 crisis," the Socialist Group said in a statement. At that time, Hoekstra was minister of finance, and his nickname, "Mr. No," summed up his philosophy quite well.
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