The Netherlands has set its sights on winning ‘the heaviest possible position’ for the next Dutch representative in the European Commission, the Telegraaf quoted prime minister Jan Peter Balkenende as saying.

The current Dutch representative on the European Commission is competition commissioner Neelie Kroes, but her posting expires next year.
Kroes is keen to stay on for another term but the paper says this is very unlikely because a Dutch national has just been appointed to the top civil service job in her department. Brussels is not keen on both commissioner and senior advisor sharing the same nationality, the Telegraaf says.
Kroes has ‘operated well’ over the past few years, Balkenende said, but declined to say any more about his negotiations with Commission chairman José Mauel Barroso. ‘It is a question of how high your contacts are,’ the paper quoted him as saying.