Since Britain’s vote to leave the EU a new gang has emerged within the club. It began life as the so-called “new Hanseatic League”, a 2018 grouping taking in eight northern states that sought closer cooperation to fill the gap left by the UK as an economically liberal counterbalance to France in particular. From this emerged a smaller rump group of the three largest Hanseats (Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden) plus Austria, known collectively as the “four frugals”. The leading player in both bands was the Netherlands, the largest economy of the lot, under its conservative-liberal prime minister Mark Rutte – who won a fourth term in office at yesterday’s Dutch election.
The full significance of the new Dutch role as the leading voice of fiscal caution in the post-British union became clear last year when Rutte, flanked by his finance minister Wopke Hoekstra, led the resistance to the EU’s ambitious plans for its long-term budget and a taboo-breaking €750 billion Covid-19 recovery package backed by common debt. Things got heated. At one point Portugal’s prime minister António Costa called Hoekstra’s patronising comments about the southern economies “repulsive”. At another, Emmanuel Macron compared Rutte to David Cameron (one of the rudest things a mainstream continental leader can say to another). After agonising negotiations the frugals were won round – albeit at a cost in concessions, including larger rebates on their contributions to the common budget.
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