Volt:
optimistic, but not naive
Convinced Europe
Europe is a given for them, they
campaigned without mediagenic actions and engage in conversation with people
who curse them on social media. Volt. A young generation. Heading for 25
European seats
Leader of Volt, Reinier van Lanschot (centre), at
the party office. Amsterdam, 13 May © Michel
Utrecht / HH
Europe still needs to go to the polls. In the run-up to the European elections, Volt Nederland is campaigning in the Glass House at Central Station in The Hague. No DJs raising money for a good cause (the usual function of the Glass House), but young people who want to discuss the European Union with passers-by. Volunteers from this first pan-European political party are lugging furniture from the adjacent building of The Hague Campus of Leiden University. Visitors to the Glass House will not have to stand. A laptop is installed so they can make videos for the website. Everyone helps, nobody is in charge.
"We are Europe" is a common slogan for Volt. They come from all over Europe. They study, work or fall in love here in the Netherlands. Just as the Dutch volunteers studied, worked or fell in love elsewhere in Europe. These are members of the generation for whom the Union is not a question but a fact, who know no better than that you can travel the EU without a passport; that you can study with EU scholarships in Lisbon, London or Leiden; and that in many EU countries you no longer have to exchange your money.
During the pleasant, fairly disorganized start of this campaign meeting, a young woman enters the Glass House. She looks around searching and says to no one in particular: "Unfortunately I can't help campaigning today, but I have some goodies for you." And she’s gone. She has to catch a train.
Jason Halbgewachs, party secretary, recognizes that expression of commitment to the party. In the weeks just before the elections in Amsterdam at the party office, he sometimes worked sixteen hours a day, and often someone dropped by with a bite to eat. Spontaneous, not pre-arranged, let alone sent from higher up. Many a Party Tiger from established political parties will probably now think: yes, that is still possible if you are building the party, but just wait.
Reinier van Lanschot, Volt Nederland's party leader in the European elections, has to laugh when I tell him. He knows the theory about the standard cycle that an organization has to go through. But he has been warned about all these phases. One of them said: watch out, it’s most difficult at the start. Someone else contradicted by warning about the expansion phase: then the momentum is gone, then tough reality takes over.
I speak to Van Lanschot and Halbgewachs a few weeks after the polls. They first went on holiday to rest from the intensive campaign. The party leader went to Lebanon to meet a friend who works in Dubai. Halbgewachs travelled via Vienna, to meet a cousin there, to Slovakia. They do not turn their backs on making journeys inside and outside of Europe. This generation is also a sign of this.
Volt Netherlands did not receive enough votes for a seat in the European Parliament. But when someone walks past our table and makes a comment about it, Van Lanschot says quietly: “We now have one seat in Parliament and two local representatives.” Volt Germany's party leader, Damian von Boeselager, is in Brussels and two municipalities in Germany now have Volt candidates on the local council. As representatives of a pan-European party, Van Lanschot and Halbgewachs also view the result as pan-European.
Volt was founded two years ago. The Italian Andrea Venzon was the initiator and chairman of Volt Europe. Volt participated in the European elections in eight countries and in thirteen countries there are now official political parties with that name. Venzon started Volt because he felt that nobody in Europe represented the values with which he had been brought up. He thought of an open society, social justice and a strong Europe. According to him, the middle parties hardly mentioned that anymore. He blamed them for joining the populist jargon against Europe.
Volt wants to stay away from the adage that throwing mud generates attention
Look at Brexit and how Brexiters like the British politician Boris Johnson talk about Europe. Look at how the Forum for Democracy in the Netherlands rails against the European Union as the PVV did before. Remember that a majority in the Dutch parliament wants to get rid of the phrase "an ever closer union" in the Treaty of Europe. And also how Brussels is often blamed for everything that goes wrong in France, Italy or Hungary. Taking the initiative for a pan-European party is then like rowing upstream against a strong current. That takes a dose of optimism, otherwise you won’t survive.
But we are not naive, Van Lanschot adds immediately. He jokes that Volt sometimes resembles the European Union. He then refers to the differences he sees between how volunteers from different countries think and act. He dares to admit that these are cultural differences that go back far into history. In the months that he worked hard to get a seat for Volt Nederland, he also acquired a better understanding of the tension between national and European, between what is good for his own country and what is good for the Union.
That is not a reason for Van Lanschot or Halbgewachs to stop believing in Europe. On the contrary. They are convinced that countries of Europe can only work together if they want to combat emerging superpowers like China. Van Lanschot is reading Grand Hotel Europa by Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer. Europe as a huge amusement park and museum and the Chinese as our colonizer: that is a brief summary of what the author outlines in his novel. And Van Lanschot, Halbgewachs and their generations are the new forced labourers, they joke afterwards.
To protect Europe from this, Van Lanschot has resigned from AHold and Halbgewachs took a number of months of unpaid leave from the consultancy where he works. There were people in their area who did not understand this. Halbgewachs tries to explain to me what he has received in return in the form of experience, encounters, the pleasure of working together for a focused goal, what you learn from it. But as he talks, he realizes that this sounds as if he only did it for his resumé. He tries to correct that. He and many of the Volt volunteers want to get rid of the pressure to perform that is also characteristic of their generation.
For Van Lanschot, commitment to a goal like Europe means giving meaning to life. He can’t imagine that, after his studies, he would get a job, possibly get some promotion every few years and start earning more, maybe have children - and that’s that. Halbgewachs has peers who work, go home, sit on the couch in the evening watching series and think they are busy. Everyone has a choice, he wants more.
But helping set up a new party, isn't that the opposite extreme? Van Lanschot recalls that Prime Minister Mark Rutte called them naive during the election campaign. Rutte apparently saw no potential, Van Lanschot thinks. That is why he is all the prouder that Volt has gained a seat in the European Parliament. It does not seem to bother them that a newcomer in the Netherlands, such as the Forum for Democracy, immediately plays a leading role with several seats. On the contrary. They have gained that one seat, the two men emphasize, by conducting a campaign that was devoid of eye-catching stunts. Volt wants to keep its distance from the adage among campaign gurus that throwing mud and playing the man generates attention.
Volt members remain polite on Twitter and Facebook. During the election campaign, however, they often had plenty of mud flung at them on social media. Volt responds to those messages that curse them. Their experience is that the sender is often shocked when he receives a polite message back from them, sometimes even apologizes and wishes them success. Halbgewachs compares it to swearing at other road users in the safe cocoon of a car. A pedestrian on the pavement wouldn’t tend to do that. He is vulnerable. That is what it is all about, on social media and in politics. They are strengthened in their resolve by the fact that a Dutch celebrity and actress like Katja Schuurman let them know publicly in advance that she was voting for Volt.
After his unpaid leave, Halbgewachs has since returned to work as an externally hired consultant with the government. Van Lanschot is looking for a job now that he has not been able to get a seat in the European Parliament. Both remain committed to Volt. They hope that their party can participate in the next European elections in all the member states. And then get more seats. Preferably 25, then the Volt delegates can form their own group in the European Parliament. They aren’t that far yet, so Volt has become a member of The Greens/EFA in Brussels for the time being.
Volt also wants to get a foothold nationally. Van Lanschot says that within the party they realize that, in order to gain influence in Brussels, you also have to have influence in the member states, so here in the Netherlands in The Hague. That is where decisions are taken about what the Netherlands wants to achieve in Brussels. And yes, they are contributing to further fragmentation in parliament. They often hear that reproach.
But they have no choice, they think. Even the political party that is the strongest advocate for Europe in the Dutch parliament, D66, does not express their ideal for them. Volt wants a Europe with a parliament with groups of purely pan-European parties. A parliament that has just as much power as Capitol Hill in the United States of America. They are therefore striving for a federal Europe, for a United States of Europe. At a time when the words "an ever closer union" are already contaminated for many, the f-word is taboo and others even argue for a departure from the Union, this is a sign of optimism. Although their opponents will gladly continue to frame that as naive.
Aukje van Roessel has been working as a political editor
for De Groene Amsterdammer since 2004. For her weekly chronicle In The
Hague she received the 2015 Anne Vondeling Prize for political journalism.
Before she started at De Groene, she worked as a journalist at
Brabant Pers, de Volkskrant and NRC Handelsblad. She was a guest
lecturer at the School for Journalism in Utrecht, gave courses in writing to
employees of communication departments and was a panel member of the radio
programme Villa VPRO Media
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