The World’s Biggest Climate Bureaucrat Wants to Win an Election

Rotund and grey-bearded, the 62-year-old Dutch politician Frans Timmermans exudes the staid gravitas of a long-serving, rules-wielding bureaucrat—which isn’t far from the truth. For the last four years, as vice president of the European Commission (and thus second fiddle to Commission President Ursula von der Leyen), the Dutch social democrat has become known in Europe as the indefatigable face of the European Green Deal, the European Union’s sprawling package of climate protection measures.

Now, in the Netherlands’ Nov. 22 general election, Timmermans is heading up a joint slate called Labour/GreenLeft, an amalgamation of Timmermans’s own social democratic party and the Dutch greens. And the question is whether his climate-bureaucrat reputation will hurt his chances as a populist politician.

What can’t be doubted is that Timmermans effectively battled to put the EU out in front as world leader on climate policy, whether the topic was emissions standards for automobiles or wetlands restoration. He helped steer the EU through the 2022-23 energy crisis, instituting measures to simultaneously end European dependence on Russian fossil fuels and fortify the Green Deal, by conserving more energy, rolling out renewables faster, and filling gas storage facilities to the brim.

Thus it was a blow to environmentalists when Timmermans announced this summer that he’d be stepping down to run for office in his homeland. “A lot of people felt that all the progress—the higher targets, carbon pricing, and other Green Deal measures connected to Timmermans—might be at risk,” said Jörg Mühlenhoff of the Heinrich Böll Foundation, a German think tank in Brussels.

The Brussels heavyweight seemed like the perfect fit for the Labour/Green slate since he embodies the goals of social justice and climate protection like no one else. Moreover, he led the Dutch Labour Party to victory in 2019 European Parliament elections. The news of his return upended polling in the Netherlands as the Labour/Green slate sailed to the top, putting Timmermans in play as the country’s next prime minister.

But the polling numbers have sagged and today Labour/GreenLeft is fighting just to land among the top four of the 29 parties running. “In order to win, this [coalition] had to make inroads into the ranks of conservatives, and it has not managed to do this,” explained Jacco Pekelder, of the Center for Netherlands Studies at the University of Münster in Germany. “Timmermans has had trouble shedding the image of a detached, high-brow Brussels politico. He comes across much too serious and unlikeable, something he’s fought to change but hasn’t pulled it off.”

Timmermans might have guessed that his Green Deal credentials weren’t going to be worth much in the Netherlands. Like elsewhere in Europe—in fact, like just about everywhere else in Europe—climate policies are experiencing a nasty backlash in the Netherlands, with a boost to far-right parties and damage to their green-tinged opponents. Even in the EU itself, Timmermans and von der Leyen had to compromise on significant aspects of the Green Deal this year, backtracking on emissions reduction goals, the nature conservation law, and a combustion-engine ban.

In the Netherlands, the writing was on the wall before Timmermans jumped into the fray. In summer 2022, Dutch livestock farmers brought the country to a standstill protesting a legislative proposal aimed at cutting agricultural pollution. The Netherlands is a major exporter of agricultural goods, including livestock-related products—not least cheese—that emit huge quantities of nitrogen, a potent greenhouse gas and contributor to climate change. With 1.6 million cows, a dense population, and heavy traffic, it produces four times as much nitrogen as other European countries.

In an effort to meet its 2030 decarbonization goals, the conservative Dutch government proposed a number of steps designed to make farming more sustainable. But the measures infuriated Dutch farmers, who blockaded highways and city centers with tractors, occupied urban spaces, and set fire to manure and hay bales. Grocery store shelves went bare, and the country ground to a halt. Despite the inconvenience, the protests elicited sympathy and support from the population, who saw salt-of-the-earth farmers being duped by urban elites. In provincial elections in early 2023, the upstart Farmer Citizen Movement, which goes by the Dutch acronym BBB, upset the established parties by sweeping the vote.

“The farmers’ protests sent the clear message to The Hague that the countryside will no longer accept being neglected,” explained Louise van Schaik, of the Hague-based Clingendael Institute. “The spring results represented a protest vote, but not one with a lot of staying power. Already these voters have shifted back to the conservative parties that originally took on the farmers’ issues. Now the conservative parties reflect more skepticism about serious climate action.”

While the BBB’s popularity has ebbed, it counts among a number of populist movements—including the French yellow vests protests (2021) and Polish coal miner demonstrations (2021-23)—signaling to European politicos that when climate laws directly impact living standards or livelihoods, they will not be suffered without a fight. Across Europe, far-right and conservative forces have picked up on this discontent to force the EU and member states to dilute or scratch climate legislation considered key to decarbonization.

This is why Timmermans and the Labour/Green campaign have tread gingerly on environmental issues, even backtracking on their commitment to halve nitrogen emissions by 2030, which is seen as crucial to meeting the Netherlands’s climate goals.

Rather, Timmermans has focused on classic social democratic themes such as ramping up investment in the Dutch welfare state, including affordable housing, the healthcare system, and education. He wants to raise the minimum wage, as well as taxes for multinational corporations. As for the EU: It “has barely featured as a topic during these elections, making it more difficult for Timmermans to point to past successes,” one observer noted.

Looking ahead to next year’s European Parliament election, when all seats across the 27 countries are up for grabs, Timmermans’s soft-pedaling of climate issues—and even backtracking on the Green Deal—may be de rigueur for the mainstream parties. Already European conservatives are posing climate action as antithetical to the continent’s financial wellbeing, even opposing measures that von der Leyen, a fellow conservative, has stamped her name on. “They figure this is a better bet for them than a campaign centering on the topic of migration, which the far right occupies,” van Schaik said.

It is difficult to foresee where the Labour/Green slate will fit into the coalition government that will take the reins from the current Dutch government. Given the fractured political landscape in the Netherlands, the next government will probably contain four or more parties. Among those currently ahead of the Timmermans’s party is the free-market conservative People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD), which has headed up the executive branch since 2010 under Prime Minister Mark Rutte and is now under the new leadership of Dilan Yesilgoz-Zegerius, who immigrated to the country as a child refugee. A new star on the stage is the New Social Contract party, which campaigns on good governance and social security and opposes further EU integration. And then there’s wildcard Geert Wilders, the white-coiffed, populist Islamophobe who broke into Dutch politics 25 years ago and longs to be part of a hard-right, conservative leadership that will stem migration, scale back climate ambitions, and pull the Netherlands out of the European alliance supporting Ukraine.

If skilled European statesman Timmermans winds up in the Dutch parliament’s back benches, rather than the executive, he might wonder whether his services were not put to better use in shaping policy from Brussels. It will also be fair to wonder whether anyone can find a way of translating climate policy into the messier idiom of national electoral politics.