When the dust settled on historically equal elections in the Netherlandswonderful trend appeared. While party leaders were focused on traditional campaign issues, voters used their ballots to send a clear message: digital competence in parliament is no longer a nice-to-have. his necessity. It is a grassroots movement, spurred on by initiatives such as NerdVotesuccessfully promoted tech-savvy candidates to parliament despite their low positions on party lists.
While the center-liberal D66 party and Geert Wilders' far-right PVV battled for first place, the real story for the tech sector happens further down the ballot. Barbara Kathmann united GroenLinks-PvdA (Green left-Work) the party, an outspoken defender of digital rights and sovereignty, was set to lose its seat due to its party's performance.
However, a massive preference voting campaign that resulted in her gaining more than 25,000 personal votes guaranteed her return to the House of Representatives.
This outcome was not an accident. His This is the result of a growing awareness among the Dutch electorate that the country's digital infrastructure is both a vital asset and a significant vulnerability.
“The voters sent a clear message,” he said. Bert Hubertrespected technologist and government advisor. “The political parties themselves have placed their digital candidates lower on their lists. Now voters have said: 'No, we mobilization ourselves” and they organized 30,000 votes for Barbara.”
Hubert, founder PowerDNS and former regulator of the Dutch intelligence services, is the driving force NerdVoteplatform that highlights candidates with demonstrable technology expertise.
He points to early data analysis showing that in university cities such as Utrecht, Leiden and Delft, about 1% of all voters favor Kathmann, providing anecdotal evidence of a “nerd factor” at work.
Disconnect from the “Party Dinosaurs”
Success NerdVote The campaign casts a harsh light on a painful breakup. While citizens are increasingly concerned about topics such as digital sovereignty, cybersecurity and the power of big tech, the upper echelons of political parties appear be laggard. Why were these expert candidates placed in seemingly unelectable positions in first place?
Hubert gave a harsh assessment. He explained that the composition of the electoral rolls is often determined by “party dinosaurs” – influential party veterans who, in his words, “represent the people who print out their emails.”
“They are all balancing interests when putting together the voting list,” Hubert said. “They need someone from the cultural sphere, someone representing Antilles, and eventually someone falls off the table. Fine, This usually a nerd. Because none of these party dinosaurs, and this applies to all parties, have anything to do with this topic.”
Lack of intimacy creates a dangerous blind spot. In a country where the Amsterdam Internet Exchange (AMS-IX), a critical hub for global internet traffic, is located, and where vital North Sea data cables come ashore, treating technology as an afterthought is a high-stakes gamble. “We have absolutely no respect for technology in our governing bodies,” Hubert said. “His treated as a sewer: his important, but preferred to be underground and invisible. AND That's why, no one is going to make a policy about this. They all expect someone else to fix it.”
Paper tigers
This attitude has led to a situation where, despite the barrage of political documents, concrete actions remains elusive. A few weeks before the elections at the Digital Debates organized For 10 industry organizations, the disappointment was palpable. Although politicians from all major parties agreed on the need for greater digital autonomy for Europe, the question of how to achieve it remained open. practically no answer – A view echoed by Kathmann during the debate: “We're just not in the driver's seat, and that's must change radically. How much I concerned, you might even pass a law about it.”
Queenie Rajkowski of the Conservative-Liberal VVD party has mentioned a €42 billion investment fund for digital sovereignty, a promise the tech sector will be watching closely. But as Hubert pointed out, the most significant funding for Dutch digital projects currently comes from Brussels rather than The Hague.
“There is no real money coming into The Hague,” he said. characterizing Dutch policy as a “residents' association meeting” focused on “gasoline, foreigners and nitrogen”. His He argues that it is convenient to launder digital policy through Brussels, which appears to recognize its urgency.
Their approach was not revolutionary, but mostly pragmatic. They started by migrating 70% of employees who use only basic office functions, while providing dedicated support to the remaining 30% for complex use cases such as complex Microsoft Excel macros. “In the Netherlands we often say: “No, we can't possible to changebecause one person in the accounting department has 47 Excel sheets with macro links,” Hubert said..
The success of the German state proves that a step-by-step practical approach is completely attainable.
The move also fundamentally changes their relationships with suppliers. As Hubert points out, negotiating the price of Teams with Microsoft puts you at a disadvantage when using Teams for negotiations. “Can you imagine what a different negotiating position you're in when you tell Microsoft: 'come moving on to our own video conferencing tool?” he asked. “It could probably save hundreds of millions.”
The waiting game
With elections set to be a virtual draw and a difficult coalition-building process ahead, the future of Dutch digital policy remains uncertain. A strong showing from D66, which now has several astute digital MPs, including Hanneke van der Werf, a long-time digital policy expert, and the newly elected Sarah El Buždainiwho works as a senior adviser on data and artificial intelligence at the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water, offers hope. Re-election stubborn Kathmann by voting on preferences is a clear victory for digital awareness.
However, this turnover of political staff also leads to systemic delays, a problem that D66's Van der Werf noted in the Digital Debate. “If we get a whole new batch of digital reps again […] that is why we are, to put it bluntly, experiencing long delays here in The Hague,” she said.
However, the key question remains is this newfound expertise in parliament will lead to the formation of a government ready to act. Many are calling for a dedicated digital minister with real powers, but Hubert believes this is putting the cart before the horse. “If people really thought it was important, such a ministry would arise naturally,” he said. “But now we are trying to do the opposite: create a minister or ministry and then I hope people find it important.”
Hubert points to the current situation as evidence of the scale of the problem. “It's absurd that we put digitalization under the leadership of the Secretary of State, who is also responsible for the Dutch Caribbean region,” he said. – This already suggests that we do not consider this very important – first, we transmit it to the Secretary of State, and second, we shared this role with the Antilles.”
What Hubert would prefer to see first is a coordinated whole-of-government ICT policy. Currently, he says, “every forest ranger can buy his own IT,” which fragments systems and leaves small government agencies at the mercy of their vendors. It is only with such strict policies in place that having a dedicated minister makes sense, he said. Or will digital policy remain an underfunded portfolio, shared with other responsibilities?
At the moment the Netherlands is in a holding pattern. The voters did their job. demonstration complex understanding what's happened at stake. Now the party dinosaurs and the new coalition must prove that they have received the message and are ready to move beyond paper tigers and finally begin to build a digital sovereign nation.
