Nieuwspoortdiner

Toespraak | 03-05-2011

Your Excellency, ladies and gentlemen,

It is always a great pleasure to be here in the Hall of Knights, a place steeped in history. And it is an even greater pleasure if you can introduce a very special guest to a distinguished audience. I am honoured to welcome the President of Ireland, Mary McAleese, to this year’s Nieuwspoort dinner.

Nearly a century ago, James Joyce mentioned the Netherlands in his novel, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Stephen Dedalus, the Joyce persona, finds a book in the library about this strange, far-off country. What he reads and sees puts him in a euphoric mood. Let me quote: ‘There were lovely foreign names in it and pictures of strange looking cities and ships. It made me feel so happy.’ Madam President, it is good to know that the Netherlands evoked such positive feelings in the man who is possibly Ireland’s most famous son.

The Irish and the Dutch get on well with each other. We like to keep things informal, and we hold friendship and trust in high esteem. They are values we also respect in our business relations. An appointment can run over time, but both the Irish and the Dutch always want to start promptly.

In the past decade, Ireland and the Netherlands were both doing extremely well. With Canada, we led the world rankings for countries with the highest number of entrepreneurs in the workforce. More than Germany. More than the United Kingdom. And more even than the United States. We were also among the top ten countries for standards of training and productivity. And we scored high on innovation and sustainability.

Till 2008. Till the financial and economic crisis that swept across the world like a devastating tornado. Till the moment that institutions we thought were as solid as houses collapsed like a house of cards. In the Netherlands, the impact of the crisis will be felt for many years to come. Here too, the crisis has robbed us of part of our wealth.

Ireland was hit much harder. The housing market collapsed. The bank sector suffered severe blows. Its economy contracted more than in any other euro country. The large budget surplus in 2007 had become a twelve per cent deficit by 2010. Almost immediately, the Irish government with the broad support of the Irish people took some very drastic austerity measures. But in November last year, Ireland still had to call on international support.

As you know, the Netherlands is guaranteeing more than one billion euros in net loans from the European Financial Stability Facility, the EFSF. As Minister of Finance, I am often asked whether we can afford that. After all, it isn’t that easy for us either. We will have to make cuts to the tune of 18 billion euros annually.

My answer is always the same. It was a well-considered decision to give Ireland financial support as it faces the difficult task of returning to the situation before the crisis. It was a business decision. But is was also a matter of friendship and trust.

To start with, a strong, stable euro is in our own interests. We live largely from our exports. Last year our economy grew more than expected: by 1.8 per cent. That was because the export market made a rapid recovery, due to an increase in world trade.

What is more, Dutch pension funds also have interests in Ireland. The Netherlands would suffer a severe blow if Ireland went under. But more important than all of these reasons is my conviction that Ireland will recover. It is looking for new openings, new engines to power its economy. There are serious plans to expand goods transhipment in the port of Dublin, and to upgrade Cork into a cruise terminal. There are some large-scale, sustainable initiatives. In 2010, the Irish economy grew by one per cent. That is an encouraging sign.

Like the Dutch, the Irish are well educated, enterprising, innovative and not afraid of hard work. Political parties and the general public are united in their determination to get their country back on its feet again. And so, despite all the problems facing the Netherlands and Ireland at this time, I have every confidence in the future.

Ladies and gentlemen,
I started with the enthusiasm of James Joyce about the Netherlands. I want to end with a Dutch writer, and his love of Ireland. Marten Toonder, one of our most famous authors and illustrators, always spoke with great warmth about Ireland, his second home. He spent much of his life in the town of Greystones. And this is what he said about it:

‘The landscape here is exactly the same as in my books.
I was drawing it even before I saw it.’

Madam President, I hope that during your visit to the Netherlands you will feel equally at home here as Marten Toonder felt in Ireland. This is the final year of your fourteen years in office. We are delighted that you were willing to deliver a lecture here, in the heart of the Dutch democracy. No one can describe Ireland’s strength, flexibility and resilience better than you.

Madam President, the floor is yours.

Thank you.