Netherlands Essay ⋆ Business Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

The Kingdom of the Netherlands is a commonwealth of three countries, formed by charter between the Netherlands, the Netherlands Antilles, and Aruba, the latter two of which originated as part of the Netherlands’ colonial empire. The Netherlands Antilles (309 sq. mi., population 225,000, gross domestic product [GDP] $2.4 billion in 2004) is also known as the Dutch Antilles (sometimes still referred to in texts as the Dutch West Indies, the Colonial-era term) and includes the islands of Bonaire, Curacao, Saba, Saint Eustatius, and Saint Maarten. The political union of these five islands was scheduled to be dissolved in December 2008, with each island becoming a sovereign nation within the federacy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, but the dissolution has been postponed (though no date is set, plans for dissolution proceed). Aruba (74 sq. mi., population 104,000, GDP $2.4 billion in 2008) was once part of the Netherlands Antilles but seceded in 1986 after years of struggle and debate.

The Kingdom of the Netherlands is often referred to as “the Kingdom,” both to disambiguate because foreigners so often use “the Netherlands” to refer to both the country and the commonwealth, and in order to avoid the appearance that the European nation is superior to the New World entities in the commonwealth’s estimation. The current form of the Kingdom was formed in 1954, though an entity of the same name persisted from 1830 (when Belgium declared independence) to 1954. The Kingdom came about as a result of a radio address by the Dutch Queen Wilhelmina on New Year’s Day, 1942, when the Dutch royals were in London, in exile from the Nazioccupied Netherlands. In this speech, Wilhelmina declared that the government wished to reexamine its relationship with its colonial holdings, and that after the Nazis were expelled from the Netherlands, the government would raise the colonies up to a position of equal participation in the kingdom. Although the primary purpose of the speech was to drum up support for the Dutch in democracies like the United States, where many Americans had a natural distrust of monarchies and colonial powers, the government made good on its promise, negotiating the practicalities over the nine years between the end of World War II and the institution of the Kingdom in 1954.

The administration of the Kingdom falls to the monarch—currently Queen Beatrix (b. January 31, 1938), who took power in 1980 when her mother Queen Juliana (daughter of Wilhelmina) abdicated because of her failing health—working in conjuction with the Council of Ministers of the Kingdom. The Council in turn is made up of the Council of Ministers of the Netherlands—the country’s executive cabinet—along with a plenipotentiary minister from both Aruba and the Netherlands Antilles. The prime minister of the Netherlands acts as chair of the Council. Because the Kingdom does not have an economy or laws separate from its member nations, administration is a periodic rather than ongoing task. Upon dissolution of the Netherlands Antilles as a political union, the constituent islands will have plenipotentiary ministers of their own.

Government And Economy

The Netherlands(16,033sq.mi.,population16,440,000) includes most of the Kingdom by any measure. The densely populated country, though associated in the Western imagination with windmills, wooden shoes, and Sinterklaas, is also the oldest capitalist country in the world, with the first stock exchange. Amsterdam, famous now as the laboratory where the country’s experiments with progressive legal reforms play out, was the wealthiest trading center of the early modern world, and the country’s early success with free market economics—a century before Adam Smith— paved the way for the Colonial era, funding fleets of trading ships to plot spice routes and slave routes. Much of the shape of the modern economy was first traced in Amsterdam, from boom and bust cycles to the phenomenon of speculator-investor mania to the insurance industry and retirement funds—with much of that in place years before the free market Patriots expelled the British from the American colonies in the interest of capitalist democracy.

The modern day Netherlands is an industrialized and cosmopolitan country. With Belgium and Luxembourg, the country is part of the Benelux economic union (the name coming from the first letters of each of the three countries) and was instrumental in the European communities that led to the formation of the European Union. In the late Middle Ages and early modern eras, the Benelux countries were called the Low Countries, known for their wars, their music, and their art. The unofficial “capital city” of Western law is The Hague, the Netherlands’ third-largest city, home to the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Court, Europol (the EU’s criminal intelligence agency), the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, and the Special Tribunal for Lebanon. Though the capital of the Netherlands is Amsterdam, the government operates principally from The Hague, where the Supreme Court is located, along with the Queen’s offices and domicile, and all foreign embassies.

The Netherlands is a parliamentary constitutional monarchy, and rated as the fourth most democratic country in the world by The Economist, as of the end of 2008. The general tendency in Dutch politics is to move toward consensus and synergy. The monarch arbitrates between political parties during the formation of the Council of Ministers, which consists of

13 to 16 members. The prime minister has no official power greater than that of other ministers, and is almost always the leader of the political party with the greatest representation in government. The States-General, a bicameral parliament, consists of the 150 members of the Lower House (or Second Chamber) elected in direct elections every four years or upon the dissolution of a cabinet, and the 75 members of the Upper House (First Chamber) who are elected by the provincial assemblies (themselves elected by direct election every four years). Legislators of the Upper House have the power to reject legislation, but not to amend or originate it.

The Social-Economic Council, a body of regional regulatory agencies, consults with the government on all major decisions, and in turn meets with trade and economic unions as part of the Dutch tendency toward consensus-seeking. The Social-Economic Council is charged with providing advice to form an economic policy that is fair to labor, fair in its distribution of income, and promotes healthy sustainable economic growth in the nation.

A prosperous country, the Netherlands has the 16th largest economy in the world, with economic growth considerably above the European average. Inflation is low, and unemployment is the lowest in the European Union. Industry centers around chemicals, petroleum, and food processing, and Dutch investors are among the five largest groups of foreign investors in American companies. Amsterdam continues to be a hub of stock trading activity, while Rotterdam is the continent’s largest port, and the busiest port outside Asia. The recently built Betuweroute railway is a highspeed freight railway bringing goods from Rotterdam to Germany.

Bibliography:

Paul Arblaster, A History of the Low Countries (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005);
C. H. Blom and Emiel Lamberts, eds., James C. Kennedy, trans., History of the Low Countries (Oxford, 1999);
Bernard A. Cook, Belgium: A History (Peter Lang, 2005).

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