His appointment has not been confirmed but the proposal is already raising the hairs of many MEPs. To replace Frans Timmermans, architect of the EU’s ambitious Green Pact, who left to focus on the internal politics of his country, the Netherlands, it was his compatriot Wopke Hoekstra who was proposed by the President of the Ursula von der Leyen Commission. He is the current Dutch Foreign Minister.
The candidacy of this 47-year-old Christian Democrat, from the same European party as the Commissioner (the European People’s Party), for the post of European Commissioner in charge of climate action is not to everyone’s taste, in particular because of a CV that some could consider as contradictory with its possible future missions.
From Shell to McKinsey
Before entering politics, Wopke Hoekstra cut his teeth in the Shell group, with several years in the commercial management of the oil giant from 2002, specifies The world. The director of Friends of the Earth Europe, Jagoda Munic, thus considered that “Wopke Hoekstra has no history in terms of climate defense”, and “is not made for this position”. “Appointing a former Shell employee to lead Europe’s climate policy as we navigate a climate crisis triggered by the fossil fuel industry is a distressing message,” she said in a statement sent to the AFP.
After three years spent in the corridors of the offices of Berlon, Hamburg then Rotterdam, Wopke Hoekstra became a partner in the consulting firm McKinsey in 2006. An American firm well known in France for being at the heart of a Senate report on the influence of these cabinets in the state apparatus.
His name also appears in the Pandora Papers, an investigation into the large-scale tax evasion of several thousand public figures. Finally, the Social Democratic Group (S&D) remembers that “Wopke Hoekstra became known to the general European public thanks to controversial statements during the Covid-19 crisis”.
A not very green party
Wopke Hoekstra was dubbed the EU’s ‘mister no’ in 2020, reports The echoes. What give an idea of his action in his previous position, at the head of the Dutch Ministry of Finance. His long political career in The Hague was indeed marked by a series of quarrels with southern European countries and France. The world thus remembers the entry into force of the Netherlands in the capital of Air France-KLM in 2019, without informing Bruno Le Maire. A maneuver described as a “declaration of war” by the daily.
To top off an already not very green CV, his European political family, at least part of it, “has been deploying treasures of energy, for months, to unravel the EU’s green agenda”, says journalist Karl De Meyer, correspondent of the Echoes in Brussels. A comment confirmed by the Dutch MEP of the Party for the Animals (PvdD) group, Anja Hazekamp. She recalls in a press release quoted by Euronews that Wopke Hoekstra is “a member of a party that has systematically tried to sabotage important parts of the European Green Deal such as the Nature Restoration Act”.
“Major asset” for COP28, defends von der Leyen
“Mr. Hoekstra has shown great motivation for the position and a great commitment to the European Union. He also has relevant professional experience for this position,” defended Ursula von der Leyen after speaking with the Dutchman at Berlaymont, the seat of the European executive.
If appointed, Wopke Hoekstra will work under the supervision of Slovak Maros Sefcovic, Executive Vice-President of the Commission now in charge of the implementation of the Green Deal, in addition to interinstitutional relations and foresight. “His governmental experience will be a major asset, in particular for Europe’s climate diplomacy in the run-up to COP28” to be held in November-December in Dubai, commented Ursula von der Leyen.