Minister Blok, Agent for Foreign Affairs

"Badly chosen words." "I should not have made the statements." "I regret having been offended." In political terms in The Hague, this is called crossing the dust. It was Wednesday Minister Stef Blok (Foreign Affairs, VVD) who went for a walk in Canossa: he had to publicly pay for penance.

Stef Blok making a noise? This almost exceeds the imagination. The VVD politician has been characterized for twenty years with the drab, gray and solid keywords. Anyone who sees Stef Blok automatically thinking the jacket of the warehouse employee is a common sighting in the halls of The Hague.

That Stef Blok. He left his thoughts on the free multicultural society at a private meeting in The Hague last week. He knew no country where different populations lived peacefully together. According to him, he is genetically determined that we are not able to connect with unknown people. And Suriname is a failed state .

When the images of the meeting came out last Wednesday via the TV program Zembla everyone came across Blok. Repentance and excuses quickly followed, but they could not prevent the immutable image of Stef Blok – the "hidden gem" of the firm, his former PvdA colleague Ronald Plasterk called in 2017 – either seriously affected.

Read also: What did Blok say (and beat his statements)?

It went well

And it went well with Stef Blok. He proved that he could also take care of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The fact that he would end up facing US President Trump at the NATO summit in Brussels was something he could not imagine a year ago. Then, at that time, he saw himself "doing a job in business". Spend more time on his hobbies after all those years of politics in The Hague. Rowing, cycling, sailing, running, mountaineering. "All that is going on outdoors and you are tired," he said in a farewell interview.

It did not work like that. Prime Minister Rutte called. Thus, veteran Stef Blok, this time as Foreign Minister, is in the middle of the world of global political change and associated language. He regarded his unexpected fourth ministry as a "gift." No boy dreams like the predecessors wanted to call Foreign Affairs. But it's a "beautiful world" in which he came in, he thinks. The VVD politician, arrived in The Hague in 1998, thought he would have done everything in 2017: deputy, campaign leader, group leader, housing minister, interior minister, security minister and of Justice. He was 52 years old, time for something completely different. A life outside politics.

Need a confidante

While Blok still looked around him as a former minister in February, what he could do, he was approached. If he wanted to succeed Minister Halbe Zijlstra, who had resigned because of a story invented about a visit to Russian President Putin. Rutte urgently needed an experienced confidant in the cabinet. Blok first stopped the boat, but in the end the combination of loyalty and sense of duty was won. "You must have very good reasons to keep calling, but I really wanted to do something different."

For more than four months, Stef Blok is now Minister of Foreign Affairs. The man who in the previous cabinet, colleagues again gave a detailed account of important meetings abroad, managed to sober the remark that he had been "in Spijkenisse" this week, has already had 28 trips on it. In addition to European capitals, they brought him to the Security Council in New York, Venezuela, Colombia, Indonesia, Moscow and Morocco. "I sleep well in planes," he says

Stef Blok has come into his new position from afar. When, in his early days, journalists asked him to hold an international meeting two days later, he apologized, "You should not blame me, but I am not yet with this file." [19659002ThesecondchamberwasinitiallyrigidWhilehispredecessorssuchasBertKoendersorFransTimmermanshavelongreflectedontheworldandatthesametimechallengedBlokhasoptedforthelethalapproachofeachdebategivingeachMPaslowanddying"KoendersandTimmermanshavefoundtheintellectualdebateinterestingAtBlokyouhavetheimpressionthathefillsoutaquestionnaire"saysthedeputyBramvanOjik(GroenLinks)

Read also the article opinion of Zihni Özdil: I hope that the agitation around Blok is a wake-up call. Progressive Netherlands

No foreigner corner

C & # 39; is the big difference between Blok and the previous foreign ministers: just like the direct predecessor Halbe Zijlstra, he does not come from abroad, his enthusiasm is strange, the lawyer is a frequently heard qualification.

Lack of foreign experience.Blok knows the criticism, but is not involved, as he said last Monday – two days before the storm around his person bursts – in Brussels during a brief discussion of his early experiences as a he Minister for Foreign Affairs. "If I apply this criterion to my European colleagues, there are few left."

He prefers: "I am convinced that the domestic experience of a foreign minister is crucial to be effective.You can see it on a big subject such as migration.There were 60 000 people who would come in. It has led to rooms full of incredibly angry people, and then it's important if you're there as a politician. "

According to him, it's mainly about know if anyone can practice the profession of minister. The portfolio does not have a lot of importance. "Too much technique can also be a handicap, for each minister you have to be able to deal with interest groups and parliament, you can only be effective if you know how to create a support base, but at the same time you also know what you want to do yourself.This combination is important but complicated for people who come from outside. "

Business Management

Stef Blok is an economist. He also looks at his current job and sees parallels with his previous departmental advice.The difference is, he says, that Foreign Affairs is not "politically polarized." "It's less or less . This concerns a large number of interests on which we are in agreement. Stand up for the trial of the perpetrators of the attack on the MH17, everyone is in agreement. This makes it less political. "

But how foreign policy can be and then politically sensitive, Blok knew on Wednesday.His controversial remarks," partly to excite "as he says, are heavily burdened him. he did not believe in multicultural society

How can this be reconciled with his previous activities as chairman of a parliamentary inquiry committee on integration policy? was fully or partially successful, he said in 2004. Blok even called it "size performance".

But that was fourteen years ago. And that was then immediately that Bloks possessed VVD who was not very happy with the "naïve" tone of the report Six years later, when the VVD in the first Rutte cabinet with Geert Wilders' PVV entered the sea, Blok became leader of the party, during the debate on the declaration of On the government side, he was much more critical. Blok said then that it needed "more selective admission" and "more demanding on integration" measures.

A year later, he went to the Netherlands Antilles with parliamentary presidents of the House of Representatives. In Curacao, he opposed members of the island parliament by suggesting they leave the kingdom if they were unhappy with the Netherlands. "We will not stop."

"Stef all-round", he is called to The Hague. With that, he accumulated a lot of credit. But it is also "allegiance" Stef. And with him, he is now in trouble.

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