“A war like this shows that it really is necessary,” he says. “Apparently, you have to divide the world more and more into power blocs. Where we saw the West as the United States and Europe against – then still – the great Soviet Union. But now China has also become a serious power bloc, and even Joe Biden’s United States is starting to look like it.’
As an example, De Wit cites stories from last week, in which Biden put some sort of America First policy on the table. “He announced a package worth nearly $375 billion to boost its economy.” According to De Wit – mainly due to the attitude of the United States – it is essential that Europe thinks more from a position of power block. “But that’s still not fully understood.”
Research
The fact that Europe seems to be searching for its role does not have much public support. On the contrary, there are many critical voices, including of De Wit. He was annoyed by, among other things, Minister Conny Helder’s OneLove pin. “It has to do with the same addiction,” he continues. ‘The Netherlands has to tap into other sources of gas to meet our gas supply. These are serious problems. And I can’t imagine that the Dutch government is happy that – looking at the world map – it ends up with Qatar, which, together with Iran, can tap into the largest source of gas in the world.’
And for this very reason, De Wit thinks that Holland has difficulty offending a country like Qatar. And so there’s a veiled reaction. Even with that scarf over the brooch,” he continues. ‘The funny and remarkable thing, however, is that the German sports minister and the German national team have made a clear statement. The minister spoke to the head of FIFA and the people of the Qatar regime about it, but still closes a gas deal with Qatar. These things can really coexist.’
Honesty
What really interests De Wit is transparency. “Let the government tell its citizens: ‘We cannot afford to go against Qatar for jeopardizing gas contracts’, because we are not stupid.” De Wit also calls it a “form of hypocrisy”. “They want to make a statement, but not really, so you get this kind of polder-like compromise.”
The compromise only got more painful, however, when sitting next to Minister Helder was a Qatari minister with a connection who championed the Palestinian cause. “That was a direct provocation towards us. In short: sport and politics remain a mega-complicated combination, but how to do it like this? I wasn’t very impressed.’