The Netherlands: ‘European Integration Limited to Cooperation’

Although the Netherlands is often seen as Eurosceptic, examination of the ‘career’ of the Dutch EU narrative reveals strong and continuous support for the EU even though it has throughout most of the formation of the EU emphasised European ‘cooperation’ instead of the more centralistic European ‘integration’. The formal Dutch EU narrative expresses a limited—not more, but better—EU combined with an aversion to European symbolism, and an uneasy relation with the French idea of Europe. This chapter explores the paradoxical character of the Dutch EU narrative and its roots and traces its development over time.