Koos van Houdt

In The Hague, the European Union is often far away. Even Germany is not next door. It regularly happens that administrators or civil servants in The Hague fall into ‘Randstad thinking’. Their argument is then enlivened with maps, where a kind of virgin area is left white east of the Dutch border. Behind the border there is nothing.

We go to Bad Nieuweschans. On the border of the Netherlands and Germany, right along highway 28 (A7 in the Netherlands) from Hamburg via Bremen and Oldenburg to Groningen, Drachten, Heerenveen, Afsluitdijk and Amsterdam is a not too large, but architecturally beautiful office. This is where the Ems-Dollard Region is located. It is the northernmost of five German-Dutch so-called euregional partnerships.

You can also get a nice map at that office. You can suddenly see that the connections in the north of our country connect beautifully with those of the German motorway network. There is a perfect square of A7 (Groningen-Oldenburg), A28 (Groningen-Hoogeveen and on to Utrecht), A37 (Hoogeveen to Meppen in Germany) and on German territory the Autobahn 31 from Emden to Oberhausen in the Ruhr area.

Remarkably, the 31 was built ten years earlier than the planners in Berlin had ever anticipated. When, around the year 2000, the usefulness of cross-border cooperation in the context of the ‘Europe of the Regions’ came to the fore, Dutch businessmen decided to pay 53% of the costs for the 31. It provided them with a whole new area for better economic cooperation and direct connection to the top economic region of the Ruhr region.

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Let’s go from south to north for a moment. In South Limburg, we fear a contraction, because once upon a time the mines that had been closed for years provided work and prosperity. Seen from The Hague, it is a problem area. But the land of Eurode, Kerkrade and Herzogenrath in miniature and Parkstad Limburg together with Aachen and its urban area are growing together. Aachen, Germany, is home to a world-class Technical University. There is always a need for new options for housing, which is found in nearby Heerlen, among other places. What do you mean shrinkage? In addition, Eindhoven, Hasselt, Liège and Maastricht are located in the larger Euroregion. A region that is becoming increasingly important for the Dutch economy.

A little further north we find the urban region of Venlo, Mönchengladback and Düsseldorf. Over the past twenty years, not only logistics, but also horticulture has become an important pillar for the regional economy in the Peel, North Limburg and the neighbouring German Lower Rhine. The horticultural area around the Lower Rhine is now larger and more important than the Westland. What we have learned about the Westland (the garden of the Netherlands) is increasingly becoming the Garden of The Hague. After all, the people there must also be able to eat healthily.

Further north, in the Achterhoek and Twente in the Netherlands and Münsterland in Germany, the cities may be getting smaller, but economic and cultural cooperation is growing just as strongly. A large part of the Dutch army was subcontracted to a joint German-Dutch army corps. The most important Dutch soldiers are stationed at the headquarters in Münster.

This city, 70 km east of Enschede, is on the scale of Utrecht and The Hague, has its own university with a focus on Dutch language and literature and is known in history for the Peace of Münster of 1648. A large part of the center of this city was bombed in World War II. The beauty of that centre has been restored, as it were, with board paper facades. But the historic hall where the ceremony took place in 1648 is still there. Beautiful photos and murals enrich not only this room, but also a visit to it.

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To the north of Münsterland we find the Emsland. A region that the Dutch thought was wild and empty for a long time. The people of Groningen had a thing for this region, but that was because the Ems and the Dollard are also a bit theirs. If King Willem-Alexander considers it important to travel three kilometres of track from Roodeschool to Eemshaven by train, it is not only a tribute to his mother. In 1972, it opened Eemshaven, which was expected to be high for the development of this province. It took thirty years for those economic promises to be fulfilled. For the King, disembarking in Eemshaven is also a tribute to the Euregional ferry service Eemshaven-Borkum, the westernmost German Wadden Island and thus the bearer of cross-border tourism.

Anyway, Emsland is a green country. You will find a scenic landscape like in Overijssel and the Achterhoek. Lots of forests as a change from green, agricultural activities. If you take the Papenburg exit on the 31 and drive ten kilometers to the east, you will be lulled to sleep by that landscape, as it were. Until, suddenly, a giant concrete colossus rises above the horizon. Only just before do you realize that there is also a bridge to be crossed, which spans a river, the Ems, that is sunk into the landscape, as it were. On the concrete colossus behind it we find the name Jos L. Meyer Werft.

Everything about the shipyard is huge. Inappropriate in the landscape? Perhaps. Only when you have passed the wharf do you notice that in its shadow lies the town of Papenburg. There is not much to see about the yard itself. Large rectangular, concrete work halls. Little of what you would call architectural heritage. Everything exudes efficiency and purpose. Large parking lots for staff. And a huge water basin, in which the new ships can be moored.

Meyer Werft is a regional driving force for the economy. So big that you wonder if it doesn’t push out the smaller-scale economy that you would expect in this part of Germany. Experts doubt that. “You need such a big tractor,” says a Dutch expert at a meeting in Papenburg where cross-border cooperation between German and Dutch entrepreneurs is being discussed.

But not all smaller entrepreneurs want to be put under the straitjacket of a supplier company of such a big boy. Certainty for the longer term, but usually squeezed rates without much profit margins. Nevertheless, what Volkswagen is to Emden, Meyer Werft is to Emsland. It makes the regional economy one of the strongest in all of Germany. Regional unemployment fell to 2.4%. That also has a disadvantage. In such an economically prosperous landscape, there is often no longer the space and energy for new initiatives and innovative start-ups.

Emsland verkennen is het ontdekken van een streek waar de stadjes en dorpen zeer welvarend zijn. We wisten het nog niet in Nederland, behalve bij de afdeling Noord van de Nederlandse Metaalunie. Daar werken ze zeer nauw samen met MEMA, een bond van ondernemers in de metaalindustrie. Die is met meer dan 1200 metaal- en machinebouwbedrijven in alle soorten en maten zeer sterk vertegenwoordigd in deze streek.

Maar het logge bedrijf dat Meyer Werft heet, is daar niet actief. Meyer is te groot en gaat geheel de eigen gang. Een poging tot contact voor wat journalistieke vragen met de persdienst van Meyer wordt genegeerd. Op de ondernemersmiddag in Papenburg, waar ook al geen Meyer Werft met enigen informatie valt te bekennen, herkennen de deskundigen dat wel. “Een typisch Duits groot bedrijf. Altijd wantrouwend over belangstelling van buiten. Je moet eerst langzaam maar zeker in het netwerk van zo’n bedrijfsonderdeel zijn binnen gekomen, voor je rechtstreeks informatie krijgt. Ze willen je kunnen vertrouwen”, zegt een deskundige tegen me.

Waarom is Meyer Werft belangrijk? Papenburg ligt praktisch aan de monding van de Eems, die uitstroomt in de Dollard en vandaar langs Delfzijl en de Eemshaven naar Waddenzee en Noordzee. De schepen kunnen er gemakkelijk de werf verlaten. Het gaat om de grootste cruiseschepen ter wereld. Op dit moment zijn er 42 van de schepen in de vaart. Je kunt ze in alle grote wereldhavens tegenkomen. Zelf zagen we ze ooit aan de kade in steden als Hong Kong en Istanbul. Maar ook in Amsterdam en Rotterdam zijn schepen van de Meyer Werft geen onbekende vaartuigen.

Meyer Werft geeft werk aan 3300 werknemers uit de hele regio. De werf is voor groepen te bezichtigen. Ook zijn er regelmatig concerten en andere sociaal-culturele activiteiten op de werf. Daarmee probeert het bedrijf invulling te geven aan wat zo mooi ‘maatschappelijk verantwoord ondernemen’ wordt genoemd.

Voor Emsland is samenwerking met bedrijven in het noorden van Nederland van groot belang. Ook Meyer Werft vindt toeleveranciers in het noorden van ons land. Oost-Groningen is voor Emsland en Meyer Werft niet een regio aan het eind van Nederland, waar het altijd slecht toeven is. Nee, door samenwerking over de lidstaatgrens heen profiteert Oost-Groningen in het bijzonder en het hele noorden van Nederland in het algemeen mee van het economische succes van Emsland. Dat is een ander beeld dan dat van de witte vlek op de kaart ten oosten van de Nederlandse grens van veel Haagse bestuurders en ambtenaren.