July 2018

The Netherlands is building new coalitions within the EU to compensate for the loss of the UK as the union’s main free trade champion, and has found partners in the Baltic states. At the same time, a domestic policy issue involving gas supplies and the Dutch stance on Russia have the potential to put what has been dubbed the New Hanseatic League to the test.

While NATO is working to establish a “credible deterrent” on its eastern flank, swift and large-scale allied troop movements across Europe currently aren’t possible. The infrastructure as well as the planning capacity of the Cold War is largely gone and now needs to be rebuilt step by step, an overview presented at the Dutch Ministry of Defence showed.