Conflict of interest questions arise over minister's work as energy lobbyist

Several politicians in the Netherlands cried foul on Wednesday after it emerged that former Infrastructure Minister Cora van Nieuwenhuizen continued to participate in high-level meetings despite securing a job as a lobbyist for the energy sector. The VVD politician sat on the Ministerial Committee on Climate and Energy, and left her job as a minister in 2021 after spending four years on the Cabinet to conclude her 27-year political career.

Van Nieuwenhuizen joined Prime Minister Mark Rutte's third Cabinet from the start on October 26, 2017, a position she left at the end of August 2021. She also briefly took over as Minister of Economic Affairs and Climate in January 2021 after Eric Wiebes resigned. Both Rutte and Wiebes are also VVD members.

When Van Nieuwenhuizen announced the job change, she claimed publicly that there was no conflict of interest because she "never had any policy-related involvement in energy." However, her ongoing time on the Ministerial Committee demonstrates otherwise, according to NOS and Nieuwsuur. She also said in July 2021 that any energy-related issues would be handed off to a colleague after she accepted the lobbying position which started after the summer.

The broadcaster and news program spent an extended period of time trying to obtain documents from the Ministry of Infrastructure which conflict Van Nieuwenhuizen's claims. She twice met with the Ministerial Committee in August, and continued to receive official documents about energy policy. One of the decisions made at the time regarded financial compensation for coal-fired power stations due to slow-moving government procedures. The energy company, RWE, received hundreds of millions of euros in the scheme.

Four days after the meeting that determined the outcome, Van Nieuwenhuizen announced she was leaving to head up the energy sector lobbyist group, Energie Nederland. RWE is a member of the lobbying group. The compensation given to energy companies was later denounced as being an expensive resolution by the current climate minister, Rob Jetten.

Van Nieuwnhuizen's switch to lobbying had already raised red flags after it happened. Ministers and state secretaries were already subject to a two-year ban on becoming a lobbyist, unless the the subject of the lobbying work is not related to their work on the Cabinet. That rule was implemented by the Cabinet informally in 2017, and it became a formal law in 2022. The law was formalized because of Van Nieuwenhuizen's job change.

It took the Ministry of Infrastructure over two years to provide the documents requested by NOS and Nieuwsuur, which even led a court to penalize the ministry with a 15,000 euro fine. Those documents also showed Van Nieuwenhuizen chaired a meeting of ministers about North Sea wind energy farms, and the construction of pipelines from Rotterdam to Chemelot and Germany.

Political parties NSC and Volt have demanded clarification from Prime Minister Rutte about the possible conflict of interest. They want to know why she was able to "continue to interfere with energy policy as a minister even though she knew she was going to work for the interest group, Energie Nederland." They also asked if there were political reasons that resulted in the delayed release of the material requested by the jounalism organizations. The questions were submitted by the parties' Tweede Kamer leaders, Pieter Omtzigt and Laurens Dassen, and NSC MP Nicolien van Vroonhoven.

Van Nieuwenhuizen acknowledged attending some meetings that could be seen as a conflict of interest, but said that she was only present to represent issues related to the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management. "In no way did I contribute to the meetings based on the specific interests of my possible future members," she told NOS, referring to the membership of Energie Nederland.

"This is where it is painful for me," she continued. "That with my completely honest intentions, the appearance of a conflict of interest has indeed arisen here, and that my political antenna was not fine-tuned. I deeply regret that, and my reputation has suffered a major blow as a result."