The Davos Papers

30 augustus 2022 | Henk-Jan Prosman

For some time now, concerns have been raised that the World Economic Forum is an informal power structure which has a major influence on political decision-making outside the formal democratic institutions. Since the coronavirus crisis, these suspicions have grown stronger. Government leaders around the world have adopted the terminology of the WEF and its chairman, Klaus Schwab. This terminology mainly includes public-private partnerships, the Great Reset and the Fourth Industrial Revolution. In order to determine to what extent the WEF also influences the policy of the Dutch government, an FVD Member of Parliament, Pepijn van Houwelingen, submitted a number of “freedom of information” requests. These requests unearthed a large number of documents which shed light on the correspondence between the WEF and Dutch cabinet members from 2016 onward.

 

The aim of this article is to make an interim analysis of the relations between the WEF and the Dutch government, based on the documents. Forum for Democracy is the only political party investigating these relations: it intends to map the relationship between the WEF and the Dutch government in the future as well. This is important because the questions and suspicions of FVD politicians were met with evasive reactions. The leader of the ChristenUnie party (Christian Union), Gert-Jan Segers, played down the importance of the WEF. He characterized it as a ‘Swiss talking club’. By now, it has become clear that the relations between the WEF – Rutte himself stresses “the importance of the World Economic Forum to the government of the Netherlands” – and the Dutch government are too intensive to dismiss the WEF as a mere talking club.I The 2019 Annual Meeting in Davos was attended by an impressive delegation from the Netherlands, including Queen Maxima, Prime Minister Rutte and ministers Kaag, Bruins, Van Nieuwenhuizen and Hoekstra.II

 

This article charts the relations with the WEF for each minister, the issues dealt with during these contacts,  and the active involvement of the various ministers. The most striking ministers are the prime ministers, Mark Rutte, and Sigrid Kaag, minister for Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation

 

Prime Minister Mark Rutte 

 

The earliest correspondence we have been able to access relates to the 2016 WEF Annual Meeting. The subject of this meeting was “Mastering the Fourth Industrial Revolution”. In a letter to Klaus Schwab, Mark Rutte thanked Schwab for the days in Davos. According to the letter, Rutte took part in a panel entitled “The Future of Europe”. He wrote to Schwab that he could not have had a better opportunity to share “several key messages” at the start of the Netherlands’ presidency of the Council of the European Union. He also thanked Schwab for meeting him and Queen Maxima.III  We can also conclude from the letter that, during a dinner meeting, Rutte spoke on the Fourth Industrial Revolution from a European perspective. Rutte also expressed his appreciation for the way in which the relationship between the WEF and the Netherlands has grown in recent years. In addition to Queen Maxima and Prime Minister Rutte, other cabinet members were also present. Rutte wrote, “Queen Maxima and the members of my cabinet were delighted to participate in the discussions in Davos and appreciate the meaningful and pleasant working relationship we have had over the past year and look forward to our further cooperation”.

 

In December of the same year, Rutte promised by letter that he would be present again in January 2017: “The trip to Switzerland, in the middle of winter, is always a pleasure for me and a highlight of the new year”.IV The topic of the 2017 meeting was “Shaping Global Systems in the Face of Political and Economic Uncertainty”. In a letter dated November 22, 2017, Rutte looked back on this conference and pointed out that the Netherlands was represented by a large delegation. He spoke of “our close working relations” and said that the 2017 meeting had given a boost to the already excellent relationship between the Dutch government and the WEF. He also invited Schwab for an informal lunch later that year and emphasized “the great importance of the WEF to the government of the Netherlands”.V

 

In a letter from Schwab dated August 30, 2017, Rutte was informed about another burning issue: cybersecurity. The WEF invited government agencies and international organizations, including Interpol and various other companies, to consider “resilient and robust” solutions.VI Rutte confirmed his participation in a letter to Schwab dated 22 November.

 

In June 2018, Schwab invited Rutte to a WEF meeting in New York, which took place immediately after the United Nations meeting in September. In his letter, Schwab praised the willingness of the Dutch government to make the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals “its leading policy framework”. The Netherlands was said to be an example for the rest of the world in this regard.VII

 

In a letter dated September 4, 2018, Schwab looked back on the dinner that Schwab and Rutte had had in the Netherlands, where "key figures from the cabinet" were also present. Schwab says he is impressed by “the dynamism with which the Netherlands has embraced multilateral cooperation and the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the two most important factors for success in the future. You and your government have been role models and great friends of the Forum for many years”.VIII

 

In September 2019, Schwab wrote to Rutte about the Strategic Partnership Framework signed between the United Nations and the WEF. In this context, a summit was to be organized in New York to develop the public-private partnership further. In Schwab’s letter to Mark Rutte dated September 30, 2019, Schwab thanked Rutte for co-chairing the WEF Economic Forum Sustainable Development Impact Summit in New York.IX

 

This letter is interesting because Schwab pointed out that the WEF is collaborating with the United Nations in the digital platform UpLink, a collaboration whose goal is to fulfil of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. In New York, Rutte said he would contribute to the session on the New Green Deal for Europe and to a session entitled ‘How to survive the 21st century’.

 

Rutte was invited to the annual WEF conference, 2020 marking its 50th anniversary. In his invitation letter, Schwab calls the WEF’s Annual Meeting “the world’s most impactful high level gathering”.X Rutte replies that the WEF plays “a key role in facilitating and supporting dialogue between politicians, business leaders, academics and civil society” and he stresses “the importance of the World Economic Forum to the government of the Netherlands”.XI

 

Rutte was also invited to a Leadership Panel on Transforming Food Systems and Land Use on January 27, 2021, as well as to a Regional Action Group for Europe and Eurasia in collaboration with Chatham House (online meeting April 30, 2020).XII On August 11, 2020, Rutte was invited to a session entitled ‘Breaking Silos to Achieve Food and Climate Security’ at the World Economic Forum Sustainable Development Impact Summit on September 23, 2021. The aim of this summit is to promote the realization of the SDGs and the Paris Agreement climate goals.XIII

 

Sigrid Kaag, Minister for Foreign Trade and Development  Cooperation

 

Prime Minister Rutte’s involvement in the WEF is mainly limited to the annual meeting in Davos. By contrast, Minister Kaag is involved in various sub-projects of the WEF. Besides Klaus Schwab, she mainly corresponds with WEF director Børge Brende and Mirek Dušek.

 

On February 13, 2020, Kaag received an invitation for a Special Meeting on the Middle East in the Fourth Industrial Revolution. According to this invitation, Kaag is a member of the Middle East and North Africa Stewardship Board of the WEF.XIV The minister had been a member of this since 2019 until she resigned as a minister in September 2021. She was involved in these initiatives on behalf of the government in her role as Minister of Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation. On April 3, 2019, she attended the annual meeting of the WEF’s MENA Stewardship Board, in Jordan.

 

The Covid crisis started in March 2020. Kaag was invited by Schwab to participate in the COVID Action Platform.XV The platform was to bring together 200 companies and the World Health Organisation, with the goal “... to help governments in areas such as providing resources for vaccine development, stimulating new plans to keep supply chains open ...”.XVI An email exchange between the various ministers shows that participation in this WEF initiative had been weighed up against other possible partners. The supposed advantages of collaborating with the WEF (MANAGE-COV) are that “all global pharmaceutical companies are active within the WEF” and that the “Minister of Medical Care is invited every year to the Annual Meeting in Davos”.XVII  In the end, the Inclusive Vaccine Alliance was picked. This email exchange is interesting because it is a clear example of a situation in which the WEF is seen as a possible partner of the Dutch government for far-reaching policy-making.

 

In an email dated May 14, 2020, Kaag was invited by the WEF to join the newly established Global Action Group. The aim of this action group was to “to identify and consider ways to strengthen, reshape or rebuild systems of collaboration in a turbulent global context”.XVIII An invitation to an online meeting of the Global Action Group describes the goals as follows: “... to build resilience, commit to a global social contract and strengthen humanitarian frameworks”.XIX A letter dated June 2020 shows that Kaag participated in the inaugural meeting. The invitation to the 51st Annual Meeting refers to Kaag as co-chair of the Global Action Group of the WEF and as a member of the Regional Action Group for the Middle East and North Africa.  WEF director Børge Brende wrote that he considers her work to be a particularly important contribution to the “work of the Great Reset”. Brende also said he envisions a special role for the Netherlands in shaping the future of “the global trading system”.XX  An invitation dated 20 September 2020 to the Regional Action Group for the Middle East and North Africa shows how much the Covid crisis is seen as a huge opportunity for a digital transformation: “If there is a silver lining to the COVID-19 crisis, then it is that the pandemic has boosted global digital transformation as governments, businesses and society are eager to adapt to a rapidly growing digital economy.” The goal is to create a “new digital ecosystem”.XXI

 

During the Covid crisis, Minister Kaag received almost weekly invitations to (online) meetings with the WEF. We do not know if and how often she accepted. We do know that she is a member of several of the groups, task forces, action groups, and so on. There are also invitations to the Covid Action Platform (“to launch the Great Reset Initiative” XXII, the Humanitarian and Resilience Investing Initiative and the Global Action Group. According to a letter from Børge Brende, in July of that year, Kaag had an exchange of views with Brende about the WEF's Humanitarian and Resilience Investing Initiative.XXIII Another thank you note pointed out that Kaag contributed to “Countering COVID-19 Shocks in Fragile Contexts” at the World Economic Forum’s Sustainable Development Impact Summit, an online meeting held on September 24, 2020.XXIV She was invited to the Trade Multistakeholder Conversation 2020 on November 8 and the Global Technology Governance Summit on October 6 and 7, 2020.

 

Other ministers

 

Eric Wiebes, Minister of Economic Affairs

As Minister of Economic Affairs, Wiebes signed an agreement (Letter of Intent) with the WEF.XXV In it, the Ministry of Agriculture agreed to work together with the WEF in the field of food production – the establishment of a Global Coordinating Secretariat in the Netherlands for a “global network of Food Innovation Hubs”. In the letter it says it was the result of “a constructive discussion between representatives of the WEF, representatives of the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy, the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality, Oost NL (a regional development body), Wageningen University and Research Foodvalley NL and representatives of Unilever, DSM and Rabobank”.XXVI  The WEF had requested financial support from the Netherlands to pay for this secretariat. In a letter dated 11 May 2021, an amount of 651,000 euros was promised to establish the secretariat in Wageningen.

 

Wopke Hoekstra, Minister of Finance

In a letter of thanks for the 2018 meeting, Finance Minister Wopke Hoekstra thanked the WEF: “It would be my pleasure to continue our cooperation on global financial issues with the WEF, for example on financial stability and sustainable economic progress”.XXVII Hoekstra agreed to investigate with his staff how cooperation with the WEF can be developed further. Hoekstra also attended the 50th annual conference in Davos. He was thanked by a WEF employee for his input in the Informal Gathering of World Economic Leaders (IGWEL) on Finding Resilience in Global Economy with New Rules. Hoekstra is also a member of the Regional Action Group for Europe and Eurasia.XVIII  On September 15, 2021, Hoekstra was invited to an online meeting on 'Shaping an Equitable Inclusive and Sustainable Recovery' on September 20, 2021.XXIX The aim of this meeting was to realize the SDGs and the Paris Climate Accords.

 

Bruno Bruins, Minister of Medical Care

After his appointment as Minister of Medical Care, Bruno Bruins was asked by Børge Brende on November 22, 2017 to participate in the Global Health and Healthcare agenda with the role of “steward” for the System Initiative on the Future of Health and Healthcare. Bruins accepted this appointment in a letter dated December 7, 2017. He nominated the Director-General of his department, Angelique Berg, as his  “senior deputy” and wrote : “It would be my pleasure to continue our collaboration on global financial issues with the WEF, for example in the field of financial stability and sustainable economic progress”.XXX  Bruins was also involved in the Global Coalition for Value in Healthcare.XXXI

 

Edith Schippers, Minister of Public Health

Edith Schippers attended Davos in 2016. There she contributed to panels on 'Antibiotics Crisis' and a session titled 'Shaping the Future of Health'. This is stated in a letter of thanks from WEF official Phillipp Rössler, who also invited Schippers to a meeting in China later that year: the Annual Meeting of the New Champions.

 

Conclusions

 

The documents show that there have been close contacts between the WEF and several Dutch ministers for many years. The article by Wouter Roorda (see note 1) provides a more comprehensive picture of the collaboration between the Dutch government and the WEF; here we limit ourselves to the information from the documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.

 

Since 2016, these contacts related mainly to the annual meeting of the WEF in Davos, but from 2020 there has been an intensification of these contacts, with Dutch ministers getting involved in more and more WEF programs. In some cases, the WEF is directly involved in political policy, such as the negotiation of a possible partnership to work together internationally in tackling Covid. In one case, the contacts led to a formal agreement between the WEF and the Dutch government, namely the establishment of the Global Coordinating Secretariat, involving a subsidy of 651,000 euros.

 

To the ministers, the WEF is certainly not just a platform where they are guests. Ministers Kaag and Bruins held formal positions in various program components of the WEF: Bruins as Steward for the System Initiative on the Future of Health and Healthcare and Kaag as co-chair of the Global Action Group and as a member of the Regional Action Group Middle East and North Africa. In that capacity, they also contribute ideas about the WEF’s strategy and publish articles on the website.

 

It is not very often that the collaboration of the WEF and the Dutch government leads to concrete policy decisions. This does not mean that there is no influence. Correspondence shows that the WEF tends to promote a political vision and Dutch ministers have repeatedly expressed their support for this vision. This vision is mainly expressed in terms of “public private partnerships” and “stakeholder capitalism”. What is characteristic about this vision is that politics is primarily understood as efficient governance through a far-reaching degree of cooperation between companies and governments. In this view, politics is primarily a matter of efficient governance; citizen input and the democratic process increasingly fade into the background. The goals to be achieved are not determined by a democratic process but are set down by international and supernational bodies such as the WEF (the Great Reset, the Fourth Industrial Revolution) and the United Nations (the Sustainable Development Goals). Concepts such as citizenship, democracy, and human rights play no significant role in the documents analysed here; at most, representatives of civil society are mentioned a few times. The WEF plays an important role in this shift from “politics” to “governance”.

 

The use of language is illustrative of this shift. We can observe the emergence of a globalist management language that puts problems on the agenda in very specific terms and suggests solutions. It is always about global challenges, ecological problems that manifest themselves at this crucial moment in history in this “ever more complex and interconnected world”. The solutions are always digital, inclusive, global, technological, agile, resilient, transformative and sustainable. The method is always that of strong leadership, dialogue between stakeholders, public-private partnerships. For almost every problem a sentence can be used like: “Increasing resilience is crucial to economies for ensuring sustainable growth in a fast developing world” (Wopke Hoekstra).XXXII More important than directly enforcing political decisions, might be the creation of a parlance in which a worldwide governing class has got used to expressing and legitimising itself.

 

These observations are coherent with the findings of Christina Garsten and Adrienne Sörbom in their book “Discreet Power: How the World Economic Forum Shapes Market Agendas” (2018). They place the WEF within an emerging system of diffuse power in which it is important to influence leaders and government officials. The WEF does not have a formal mandate but must persuade others to advance certain goals. Garsten and Sörbom see the WEF as an intermediary organization between the market and politics, which extends its reach through a network of individuals and groups. This form of power is legitimized by constantly pointing out global problems, but at the same time it puts pressure on core democratic values.XXXIII


Translated from the Dutch by Leo Epema

 


 

I See Wouter Roorda, ‘De tentakels van het WEF reiken tot ver in de Nederlandse staat’, Wynia's Week, January 19, 2022. https://www.wyniasweek.nl/de-tentakels-van-het-wef-reiken-tot-ver-in-de-nederlandse-staat/ Rutte’s remark is from Letter from Mark Rutte to Klaus Schwab, 22 November, 2017.

 

II See 'Responses from the Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation to questions from MP Van Houwelingen (Forum for Democracy) about the costs incurred by government members during meetings of the World Economic Forum (WEF)', 20 May 2022.

 

III Letter from Mark Rutte to Klaus Schwab, January 28, 2016.

 

IV Letter from Mark Rutte to Klaus Schwab, 20 December, 2016

 

V Letter from Mark Rutte to Klaus Schwab, 22 November, 2017

 

VI Letter from Klaus Schwab to Mark Rutte, August 30, 2017.

 

VII “… (the Netherlands’) willingness to make the Sustainable Development Goals its leading policy framework serve as a role model globally”. Letter from Klaus Schwab to Mark Rutte, June 19, 2018.

 

VIII Letter from Klaus Schwab to Mark Rutte, September 4, 2018.

 

IX Letter from Klaus Schwab to Mark Rutte, June 19, 2019.

 

X Letter from Klaus Schwab to Mark Rutte, 30 August, 2019.

 

XI Letter from Mark Rutte to Klaus Schwab, 10 September, 2019.

 

XII Letter from Klaus Schwab to Mark Rutte, 11 December, 2020.

 

XIII Letter from Klaus Schwab to Mark Rutte, 11 August, 2021.

 

XIV Letter from Mirek Dušek to Sigrid Kaag, 13 February, 2020.

 

XV Letter from Klaus Schwab to Sigrid Kaag, 20 March, 2020.

 

XVI Letter from Klaus Schwab to Sigrid Kaag, March 17, 2020.

 

XVII Department of Health email (subject: WEF vs. IVA), June 12, 2020.

 

XVIII Letter from Børge Brende to Sigrid Kaag, 14 May, 2020.

 

XIX Email from Børge Brende to Sigrid Kaag, 15 July, 2020.

 

XX Letter from Børge Brende to Sigrid Kaag, 1 July, 2020, see also letter from Børge Brende to Sigrid Kaag, 22 October 2020.

 

XXI Email from Mirek Dušek to Sigrid Kaag, September 20, 2020.

 

XXII Email from Klaus Schwab to Sigrid Kaag, May 26, 2020.

 

XXIII Email from Børge Brende to Sigrid Kaag, October 22, 2020.

 

XXIV Email from Cody Feldman to Sigrid Kaag, September 25, 2020.

 

XXV Letter of Intent, January 5, 2021.

 

XXVI Letter from the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy / Directorate-General for Research and Innovation to WEF, undated.

 

XXVII Letter of Wopke Hoekstra, subject: WEF meeting 2018, reference nr. 20180000G1633, February 14, 2019.

 

XXVIII Letter from WEF to Wopke Hoekstra, 23 April, 2020.

 

XXIX Letter from WEF to Wopke Hoekstra, 15 September, 2021.

 

XXX Letter from Bruno Bruins to Børge Brende, December 7, 2017.

 

XXXI Letter from Børge Brende to Bruno Bruins, November 7, 2019. See also the letters from Bruno Bruins to Børge Brende of December 7, 2017 and January 31, 2018.

 

XXXII Letter from Wopke Hoekstra, March 4, 2020.

 

XXXIII “To extend its base and its authority, the WEF must build on a strategic effort to create networks and communities across organizational boundaries. In practice, this entails propelling its ideas and visions through these networks and communities not by coercion but by seduction —that is, by attracting others to its ideas and visions and motivating individuals to work for them and to want the outcomes the WEF wants.

Seduction, as recognized by political scientist Joseph Nye, implies the exercise of a subtle, soft form of power—the ability to shape the preferences of others through appeal and attraction, not by force”. And: “The fact is that only a smaller group of the elite is invited to participate in discussions and deliberations at Forum events and the lack of transparency in criteria of admission means that liberal democratic practices are in peril”. Christina Garsten and Adrienne Sörbom, Discreet Power: How the World Economic Forum Shapes Market Diaries, Stanford University Press, 2018.

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