The construction of a Dutch Eurosceptic tradition by contemporary populist political parties

Over the last decade, Dutch hard Eurosceptic far right parties like the Party for Freedom (PVV) and Forum for Democracy (FvD) were quite successful in presenting their political preferences regarding the European Union as Dutch traditions. It was the Socialist politician Willem Drees (1886–1988) – prime minister for the Labour Party between 1948 and 1958 – who was praised by the PVV as a “real Eurosceptic” who regularly put a spoke in the wheel of the Europeanisation process. This was in line with the picture that was usually painted about Drees in the 1950s. Drees’ alleged Euroscepticism is remarkable when one considers that the cabinets under Drees’ leadership agreed to Dutch participation within the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) in 1951 and the European Economic Community (EEC) and the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom) in 1957. The self-identification of the populist, Eurosceptic PVV with Drees raises questions about the continuities between Drees’ attitude towards European integration in the 1940s and 1950s and the Euroscepticism of contemporary far right parties. To what extent is the PVV’s claim of a deep-rooted undercurrent of Euroscepticism in Dutch politics plausible?