SCENESETTER FOR EUR PDAS VOLKER'S VISIT TO THE

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 THE HAGUE 001976

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/08/2016
TAGS: PREL PGOV PHUM MAAR ISAF NATO AF NL
SUBJECT: SCENESETTER FOR EUR PDAS VOLKER'S VISIT TO THE
NETHERLANDS

REF: THE HAGUE 1958

THE HAGUE 00001976 001.2 OF 002


Classified By: Ambassador Roland Arnall; reasons 1.4 (b) and (d).

PDAS Volker:


1. (C) My staff and I warmly welcome you to The Hague. Our
Dutch MFA hosts are looking forward to consulting on a wide
range of issues, including the Riga Summit, Uruzgan, Lebanon,
OSCE reform (and the Kazakh presidency bid),the Arms Trade
Treaty, and detainee policy. You will also have excellent
opportunities to engage with Parliamentarians, opinion makers
and the press during your visit. Your speech to the
Netherlands Atlantic Commission and your press availability
will be excellent opportunities to define the U.S. agenda and
to reinforce in sometimes doubting minds the importance we
continue to place on solid trans-Atlantic relations. The
recent revelations about secret prisons have raised painful
questions about trust and transparency between allies;
putting this behind us will take hard work, but your visit
will help begin this process.

ELECTION POLITICS:
--------------


2. (C) This is an election year, with all that that entails.
The governing center-right coalition of Christian Democrats
(CDA) and Liberals (VVD) face tough opposition from the
center-left Labor Party (PvdA),but the results are far from
certain. At the moment, the PvdA -- led by the charismatic
Wouter Bos -- have a 5-10 point lead in the polls over the
next largest party (CDA),but a strong economy appears to be
shifting support back to Prime Minister Balkenende and his
political allies, the VVD. No single party has enough
support to win a majority, which ensures that the next
government -- like all Dutch governments -- will be a
coalition. If CDA and VVD together win a majority, they
could exclude PvdA from the next government, even if PvdA
emerges as the largest party in Parliament. Alternatively,
PvdA may seek to form a coalition with either the CDA or VVD
-- in either case, moderating the PvdA's more Euro-centric
approach to foreign policy. There is a remote chance that
left-leaning parties -- PvdA, the Socialist Party (S/P),and
GreenLeft (GL) -- could form a majority in Parliament, but
long-standing differences between the parties would make the
formation of a stable government extremely unlikely. If no
natural majority emerges from the November 22 elections a few
small parties -- such as the Protestant Christian Union (CU)
-- could become kingmakers. You will meet PvdA foreign
policy spokesman, MP Bert Koenders and his VVD counterpart,
MP Hans van Baalen, Tuesday afternoon. Either man stands a
good chance of being a minister in the next government,
should his party be included.

NATO:
--------------


3. (C) The good news is that nearly every possible government
coalition will be supportive of continued collaboration with
the U.S. within existing frameworks, such as NATO, despite
controversial issues such as detainee policy and trade talks.
This reflects the deep transatlantic orientation pervading
Dutch political culture. Only a few weeks ago, the formerly
Maoist Socialist Party (SP) formally renounced its
decades-long opposition to Dutch NATO membership in a blatant
effort to present itself as a "credible" coalition partner
for the PvdA. The PvdA, meanwhile, has been careful to draw
a distinction between its opposition to many U.S. policies
from its long-standing support for NATO; the PvdA, for
example, opposed the deployment of 600 Dutch Special Forces
to Afghanistan under OEF, but unanimously supported the
deployment of 1,400 troops to Uruzgan as part of the ISAF
mission.


4. (C) Regardless of the outcome of the November 22
elections, Prime Minister Balkenende will come to Riga in a
caretaker capacity -- forming a new Dutch government
generally takes between three and six months -- and with his
mind firmly focused on domestic politics. Fortunately, the
issues currently on the table for Riga are not likely to be
contentious domestically or create divisions between us and
the Dutch. In recent weeks, the Dutch have dropped their
opposition to granting Intensified Dialogue to Georgia and
signed a Letter of Intent committing 500 hours worth of
funding to the C-17 project for FY07. On other issues --
NRF, Global Partnership, NTM-I, etc. -- the Dutch generally

THE HAGUE 00001976 002.2 OF 002


support our objectives and share our frustration over the
unwillingness of other partners to move forward quickly or to
deploy resources. Over the long term, the Dutch are cautious
about enlargement/expansion prospects and hope to engage in a
"comprehensive" dialogue on the NATO's identity and future
roles before extending new invitations -- a position
determined as much by domestic skepticism about the EU's
rapid expansion as by any NATO-specific concerns. No doubt
your interlocutors will look to you for clues regarding our
long-term thinking about NATO to help formulate their
positions for Riga and beyond.

Afghanistan/Detainees:
--------------


5. (C) The bad news is that detainee policy, in particular,
has soured the mood among the Dutch public and may reopen the
debate on Dutch involvement in Afghanistan. Dutch
politicians, with the exception of Foreign Minister Bot, have
generally not shown the desire to defend the U.S.-Dutch
relationship publicly, and all too many have jumped on the
bandwagon and heaped criticism at us. Your press
availability and your Q&A will undoubtedly give you an
opportunity to vigorously defend the U.S. commitment to human
rights. You should also stress the importance we attach to
the advice of European countries in finding practical
solutions to the difficult problems these detainees have
posed. FM Bot has said his Government wants to help us find
solutions, and we welcome this.


6. (C) Having supported the Uruzgan mission, albeit with
reservations, the PvdA leadership stands as much to lose as
anyone from reopening the deployment decision as a campaign
issue. That said, public support for the mission remains
weak - a recent poll indicates that 57 percent of the
population is opposed -- and all parties remain sensitive to
the potential impact of events on the ground on the
electorate. So far, the Dutch have been lucky not to have
lost any personnel as the direct result of combat, but a
dramatic increase in Dutch casualties, problems with
detainees, or clear indications that "reconstruction"
projects in Uruzgan will not be possible during the Dutch
deployment could all increase public dissatisfaction with the
mission while pushing the three largest parties into contrary
positions. At the same time, smaller parties such as the
Progressive Liberals (D-66),Green Left, and the Socialists,
will continue to exploit public concerns about the mission to
steal votes from the larger parties.

LEBANON AND THE MID-EAST
--------------


7. (C) FM Bot has been a staunch public supporter of
Israel,s right to defend itself and has, in fact, taken
significant criticism in doing so. He has been pushing
within the GONL for the Dutch to find a way to contribute to
the UNIFIL mission, and the GONL is now considering
contributing a frigate in conjunction with the Germans. The
Dutch are also emerging as a key donor to the reconstruction
process; as FM Bot recently told Ambassador Arnall, the Dutch
"not only make pledges, but also pay up." On Iran, the Dutch
are standing firm -- at least compared to many other EU
partners -- in insisting on Iranian compliance with UNSC
directives, but are disappointed that the EU-3 process has
left them out of the loop.

OSCE
--------------


8. (C) The Dutch believe our insistence on opposing the
Kazakh bid for the OSCE presidency is counter-productive - or
at least not sufficiently subtle. MFA officials will be
prepared to discuss this, as well broader issues of OSCE
reform, in your meetings.
ARNALL