The Dutch media announced the composition of the new cabinet, in the Netherlands, following a long coalition negotiations period. I checked out the ministers, all youngish and contemporary-looking, with great hair, seven women among them, under a new Prime Minister, Dick Schoof, who in the past held top positions in Immigration and Naturalization Services, at the Anti-Terrorism department, affiliated to the Intelligence services, of the Ministry of Justice.
The outgoing Secretary of State, Alexandra Van Huffelen, will be replaced by an unknown entity, Ferenc Zsolt Szabo, 62, who will also manage digitalization. He was previously a member of the House of Representatives and served as a VP for a Tech company. His new job, State Secretary for Kingdom Relations, and Digitization, is a VVD appointment, which as you know is a conservative, nationalistic party.
As the state secretary in charge of the islands, political watchers predict, he will have less patience for our manipulations, and will seek stricter agreements with Curacao, Aruba and Sint Maarten, more financial restraints, and perhaps less niceties, less color, less feel-good and considerate initiatives then his predecessor.
Chat GPT told me his name is Hungarian in origin, and that his first name derives from the Turkish, Zoltan, which means Sultan, or King, and his last name is immensely popular in Hungary, meaning Tailor.
(Talking about Hungary, totally in parentheses: The regime under Prime Minister Viktor Orban is probably the least democratic in Europe. Orban is known for his authoritarian tendencies, media control, constitutional changes to solidify his power, Anti-Immigration policies, and restrictions on NGOs. The EU is currently not that happy with the Hungarian government. The country has veered away from post-Cold War liberal democratic principles, traveling to the right.)
Szabo came to the Netherlands from Hungary as a student in 1992, and graduated university as a Civil Engineer. Within VVD he oversees Cooperation Development, which would be helpful on the islands, he will most certainly become a household name here. Expect his style of urging the islands to act on the Landspakket, the reforms we have been talking about for the past years, with little progress so far – to be different.
Will Szabo, manage to lead the horse to the water and make it drink?
