Gathering of Dutch political foundations in The Hague

Following the opening of the meeting by the president of the Eduardo Frei Stichting (EFS), Marnix van Rij, the meeting’s key speaker and former EU Commissioner, Frits Bolkestein, presented his vision on the relevance of international aid assistance. He emphasised the specific advantage of the Netherlands, due to the country’s active record and global role in this area. Particularly the Dutch governmental MATRA-programme, existing since 1994 and focussing on countries in Middle- and Eastern - Europe, is well recognised abroad. Many valuable personal contacts were gained as a result of this programme.

Subsequent the speech of Bolkestein, presentations from the Dutch political foundations that are active in Eastern-Europe followed. Arjen Berkvens illustrated on how the Alfred Mozer Stichting (AMS) collaborated with other ENoP member foundations, such as the VVD International and EFS, in joint projects that were highly successful in Armenia and Georgia. It appeared that an efficient collaboration between the three political foundations, based on conflicting political positions and visions, provided a great inspiration for the target groups in these countries. In addition, the Dutch Greens and the FICDD from the Christian conservatives presented some of their shared projects on party capacity building in Belarus and Croatia.

After this, the meeting was closed with a brief presentation of Bert Meijerman, representing the Dutch Ministry of Foreign affairs, who covered the international context of the MATRA programme. Followed by Olga Stuzhinskaya, a representative from the Office for a Democratic Belarus, who focused on her own experiences with the AMS and the social impact of international aid assistance projects in Belarus. Stuzhinskaya emphasized the significance of aid assistance in countries with vulnerable political circumstances such as Belarus and expressed her hope that the political foundations, with the help of MATRA funding, will remain capable to perform their activities in the future.