Should we worry about Russian propaganda in the Netherlands?

What it means if Dutch leaders are taking bribes

The debate about Russian propaganda in parliament on Thursday / Volkskrant

Russia might be bribing Dutch politicians to demonize Ukraine and promote pro-Russian positions. “Might” being the operative word; a little drop of information led to a lot of speculation in the Netherlands last week about who might be involved. 

In the absence of facts, it seemed for a couple of days as though we were at the tip of the iceberg of a massive influence scandal. But I think what happened is actually a sign of weakness; it points to a lack of Russian influence in Europe.

A Czech newspaper reported that Russia pays politicians from the Netherlands, Germany, France, Poland, Belgium, and Hungary via the Voice of Europe (VoE), a far right website originally founded in the Netherlands and envisioned as the Breitbart of Europe. The Dutch owners sold it to a Czech company in 2019, and now the site is owned by a Ukrainian oligarch close to Putin. According to Investico the VoE:

turns out to be a Russian disinformation outlet that served as a conduit for financial transactions between the Kremlin and Dutch politicians... Hundreds of thousands of euros were allegedly given to politicians through the network in exchange for positions against Ukraine and the European Union.

Which Dutch politicians? Good question! 

Czech intelligence has shared the names of the allegedly-bribed politicians with AIVD, the Dutch intelligence services. AIVD will not share the names with the government or the public. There was a vigorous debate about the release of this information in parliament last week, during which Minister of the Interior Hugo de Jonge said that parliament should have “confidence in the judgment of the intelligence services” and that “national security benefits from a service that can do its work in secret.”

With the situation at an impasse, the public is left to guess who is accused. Which isn’t hard—it’s no big secret which Dutch politicians are pro-Russia.

The VoE interviewed both far-right Forum for Democracy (FvD) party leader Thierry Baudet and Member of European Parliament Marcel de Graaff for YouTube videos the last year. I haven’t linked to the videos because the account was terminated sometime in the last few days.

The Czech report accuses Russia specifically of bribing politicians to promote pro-Russia views ahead of the European Parliament elections coming up in June. Last month, De Graaff gave an unhinged speech (at 13:10, in Dutch) at the European Parliament where he said Ukrainian children were kept in “kennels with surrogate mothers” to supply Western “pedo networks.” Oddly, as he spoke he could not catch his breath and clutched at his chest.  

Baudet, the FvD party leader, is a whole other story. 

An investigation back in 2020 already suggested Baudet might have been paid by Russian sources; AIVD warned Baudet that year that he could be a target for Russian influence. He spreads conspiracy theories that Ukraine was behind flight MH17, an Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur flight shot down in 2014. 298 people died, 193 of them Dutch. Baudet has also been prosecuted for comparing corona rules with the Holocaust and called unvaccinated people the “new Jews.” Among other things.

Baudet also has been suspended twice for violating party finance rules and not registering additional income. Last week, with the Russia influence scandal in the air, Green/Labor party Member of Parliament Jesse Klaver (a man, which as you will see, you need to know) requested that Baudet make the FvD’s accounting public. Baudet replied:

I’m not going to do that. And if you ask again, I’ll punch you in the face.

Klaver filed a complaint. When the NRC asked for comment, Baudet said: 

It was a joke. I don’t hit women.

In a career dominated by lows, threatening to punch a colleague is a new one! 

Making him look even worse, Baudet did not attend the debate about Russia last week, claiming a witch hunt. It also gave him the opportunity to avoid tough questions. Baudet denies taking bribes. He told the Volkskrant:   

no extortion, no cash, no crypto, no transfer - there is also no other link between FvD and the Kremlin... We love the Netherlands and Europe dearly and it is therefore our top priority that the Netherlands is not dragged into the senseless and completely unnecessary NATO war that the American arms lobby is waging against Russia.

An investigation and subsequent prosecution by the Supreme Court is the next step—unprecedented against a Dutch MP. Bribery carries a maximum prison sentence of five years... but of course they would need suspects first. 

As guilty as these politicians look, this speculation might lead nowhere.

From 2016 to 2019 the American public was bombarded with reports that then-President Trump was colluding with Russia. Without any real evidence, Trump’s Russian ties became a given, common knowledge, and it was generally assumed that he was bound to be prosecuted. 

It all amounted to nothing. The Mueller Report, the ultimate investigation into Trump’s ties with Russia “did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.”

The Trump-Russia scandal started out the same way as this week’s maybe-Baudet-Russia scandal—with speculation based on intelligence reports.  

I think many Americans even hoped that Trump was colluding with Russia; I admit I was one of them. Behind this was a desire for an easy way out, a legal shortcut that would wake us up from the Trump nightmare without having to do the work of reckoning with why so many Americans voted for him in the first place. 

I would also like it, in this perverse way, if Baudet were convicted and he and the FvD disappeared from parliament. I would like for the problem of his views and his behavior to go away.

Alas, the world does not work like that. Trouncing him in the courts might be just and satisfying and necessary, but the more difficult fact here is that politicians like Baudet and de Graaff are pro-Russia whether or not they’re getting paid to be.

And even if they are getting paid, isn’t this a little… pathetic of Russia? These guys are the best the Kremlin can do? They’ve managed to recruit the fringe politicians who already had posters of Putin hanging in their bedrooms way before he started writing them checks? Similar far-far-right characters are accused in the other countries mentioned in the Czech report, too.

I mean, just watch the video of de Graaff speaking at the European Parliament. He sounds deranged. Even he seems to find what he’s saying deranged. Everyone in the audience reacts like he’s deranged.

Caroline van der Plas, leader of the farmer’s BBB party, paid back a campaign donation of a paltry 160 euros because it came from someone with a Russian-sounding last name. 

There is little Dutch politicians agree on more than the idea that taking Russian bribes would be insane. 

So, all of the speculation might amount to nothing. These aspiring authoritarians might simply be fans of Putin for nothing in return. 

If they are getting paid, it’s a sign of Russia’s weakness rather than its strength. We should take bribery seriously, but also keep in perspective that if Putin’s reach in Europe right now extends to rounding up a bunch of fringe weirdos, making little YouTube videos about them, and paying them to spout off propaganda whenever they can squeeze it in alongside their other extreme and roundly disregarded rhetoric, Russia’s influence just might not be as significant as it sometimes seems.

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