Opinion

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Herb Prooy: A Dutch identity or citizens of Europe

Wednesday 14 December 2011

If states don’t really matter why can’t we all be citizens of Europe, asks Herb Prooy.

When princess Máxima said four years ago that after seven years in the Netherlands she had yet to discover what constitutes the Dutch identity, her comment caused not few feathers to be ruffled.

Amid the indignant clucking of various birds of different political plumage the components of what supposedly makes up the Dutch identity were trotted out yet again: privacy, conviviality, tea and biscuits, windows without curtains, hospitality, friendliness etc.

Princess Máxima is right. There is no such thing as a Dutch identity. Certainly we Dutch like to get blind drunk as quickly, loudly and obnoxiously as possible but we are hardly alone in this. Many other nationalities are competing for first place in that particular race and the same goes for every other so-called national trait.

It stands to reason. The Netherlands as we know it today only came into being 171 years ago. Our European neighbours in their present form are not much older. That is why the identity gap between a person from the province of Limburg and one from Groningen is as great as the one between ‘the’ Dane (should he exist) and ‘the’ Italian (assuming that there is such a person). Is an inhabitant of Amsterdam tolerant and one from Helmond narrow minded?

Second best

Differences in culture and identity are not a question of state but of region, language and upbringing. A person from Twente will always be a Tukker first and a Dutchman second while a Tyrolean will extol the virtues of his native Tyrol over those of Austria. Being a citizen of a state comes second best and is really only fit for practical purposes.

So, with a common European passport since 1985, a single currency since 2002 and a groundbreaking summit meeting to further European unity last Friday why is it that we still can’t become European citizens?

Problems solved

I for one would be queuing up for the privilege of swapping my citizenship of the Netherlands for that of a federate Europe. A move towards European citizenship would solve a lot of problems once and for all and boost long-term prosperity growth at the same time.

Herb Prooy is an entrepreneur in the field of ‘software as a service’