It ain’t broke, Mr. Wennink

We’re living in times of existential doubts about our form of government. Whereas most people in the Netherlands claim to be happy with their fate, they’re unhappy with the way things are run. That feeling becomes stronger when an election is approaching and parliament suddenly decides to dole out money left and right, at the expense of long-term investment, innovation and the attractiveness of doing business. All this at a time when we face major threats like climate warming, Russian aggression and Chinese assertion.

Against this background, I was triggered by reading in the newspaper that the CEO of the Netherlands’ most prominent company, ASML boss Peter Wennink, warned us against misplaced complacency. He did this in his keynote at the opening of the academic year at Eindhoven University of Technology. As Wennink stated, all-important developments in digitization and in materials and systems for the energy transition will be led by the US and East Asia, respectively. Europe risks running behind, implying a threat to our welfare and independence.