You may think that ministers only start to rule after the landing scene, but it often starts much earlier. When it was decided privately in 2012, that Jeroen Dijsselbloem would become Minister of Finance, the ministry immediately contacted him. Finance was quietly saving a bank, SNS Reaal, and the question was how the future minister saw this.
For civil servants, a transition period such as the current one is often crucial for the relationship with their new minister. Suddenly they are condemned to each other. A shaky balance. Sensitive matters, such as such a bank, foster a relationship of trust – they pull a minister away from politics, into the board, where it is not about verbal acuity but about a balanced outcome. If you asked last week, many secretaries-general already had initial contacts with their new minister, often on sensitive issues.
So, however logical it may be to interview ministers of a new cabinet – observations from civil servants are just as interesting at the moment. They use their own criteria. Such as: a minister who mistrusts his employees almost certainly fails. The same goes for a minister who only considers slavish officials good officials. Or a minister who after three months still does not know what his three main themes will be. Such a minister, officials think, will run out of time – and will drown.
And what also strikes them: while politicians are satisfied that the cabinet will be expanded to twenty ministers (Rutte I had twelve), they are rather apprehensive. This, they think, will certainly lead to more border conflicts between ministers, “and that is of no use to any citizen”.
Finance is most assertive in dealings with its future minister. Often weeks in advance they send invoices ‘to the intended Minister of Finance’. Once, in 2006, they posed a confrontational question to the new Minister of Finance Wouter Bos: should they rely on his previous motions as Member of Parliament on national finances, or on the conflicting coalition agreement?
This year she noticed in the coalition agreement that Minister for Climate and Energy Rob Jetten, unlike his predecessor, will be given the management of his own money (a Climate Fund). And with his party leader Sigrid Kaag on Finance he also has “large backing”, because “money is power”.
But you also have skeptical officials. Having a coalition agreement only calculated afterwards (the CPB will publish the results on Tuesday) ‘certainly leads to conflict material’ in the cabinet. Dualism is nice, but the House is probably less eager if cuts have to be made. And above all, said a senior official: isn’t spending so much money mainly powerlessness, if this is all a cabinet can come up with?
A version of this article also appeared in NRC on the morning of January 11, 2022
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