“He has a handicap, because he’s perceived as this relatively well-off cosmopolitan” — an image that creates tension with the idea of defending “the interests of ordinary Dutch citizens,” said de Lange.
Over the years, Timmermans has grappled with being seen as arrogant after years of keeping his head out of the country — first, as state secretary of EU affairs and minister of foreign affairs for seven years, followed by his tenure at the European Commission for nine years, said Klusman, who is the CEO of the BKB campaigning agency.
When he came back to the Netherlands in 2023, Dutch citizens saw Timmermans as someone who was lecturing them — “telling them what to do, and at the same time somebody who had lost complete contact with what the Netherlands had become,” Klusman said. By that time, Klusman pointed out, the country had become widely dominated by right-wing politicians distrustful of the EU.
For a man who had been in charge of devising the core of the Green Deal — now used in a counter-campaign by portraying it as killing Europe’s businesses — it was not a smooth landing.
An article by Dutch newspaper NRC ahead of the vote argued that GreenLeft-Labor is increasingly associated with words like elitist, cosmopolitan and moralistic.
“This image, partly the result of years of hard work by Geert Wilders, has stuck with many voters,” the analysis said. “GreenLeft-Labor is finding it difficult to shake that off.”