Van der Lindeni artikli tõlge
Nagu hommikul lubasin, toon siinkohal ära Hollandi päevalehes de Volkskrant eile avaldatud artikli tõlke. See on paraku küll inglise keeles, kuid ehk on abi sellestki. See koosneb kolmest osast. Esimene osa on sissejuhatus esikaanel, teine on põhilugu ning kolmas juuresolev kommentaar loo laiemast taustast.Van der Linden stuck after ‘a friendly turn’
* Impartiality of PACE-president in the discussion: He wants a Russian as his successor.
* CDA(1)-senator accused of conflict of interests.
From our reporter Merijn Rengers
AMSTERDAM A former State Secretary(2) René van der Linden, the president of the European Human Rights Commission PACE, has come into discredit after he has been accused of a conflict of interests and partiality.
The immediate cause is an official visit this summer to a big real estate project in Russia. The project is set up by Piet Schreurs, a friend of him from Limburg(3). Schreurs said in the Russian press before the visit that Van der Linden has a supervisory function in his company.
A video-record shows that Van der Linden, up to January 2008 the president of PACE, has said that he hopes that his successor can be a Russian.
The members of parliament in the Baltic States think that by that Van der Linden has seriously exceeded his authority. “He is not allowed to meddle in the affairs of his succession. It is not a coincidence that he is supporting a Russian,” stated the Estonian member of parliament Marko Mihkelson.
According to an analysis of the American think tank The Jamestown Foundation, is the objectivity of Van der Linden come in the discussion as the president of PACE. A member of the Lower House of the Parliament of the Netherlands who is a member of the commission of human rights in the name of the VVD(4), shares the opinion.
The coming of Van der Linden was a friendly turn, says Schreurs. “We know each other from Limburg. René is an important man in Europe. His presence has been of tremendous help.”
The real estate project of Schreurs, V-park, is rising in the region of Vladimir, about 200 km to the east of Moscow. Beside V-park that costs 500 million euros, Schreurs plans to build another thirteen logistic centres in Russia.
Van der Linden says that the criticism against his person is politically motivated. “The relationship between Estonia and Russia is difficult. One makes personal attacks. I do not have business interests in Russia.”
Pge 6: Controversial first stone
* CDA(1)-senator accused of conflict of interests.
From our reporter Merijn Rengers
AMSTERDAM A former State Secretary(2) René van der Linden, the president of the European Human Rights Commission PACE, has come into discredit after he has been accused of a conflict of interests and partiality.
The immediate cause is an official visit this summer to a big real estate project in Russia. The project is set up by Piet Schreurs, a friend of him from Limburg(3). Schreurs said in the Russian press before the visit that Van der Linden has a supervisory function in his company.
A video-record shows that Van der Linden, up to January 2008 the president of PACE, has said that he hopes that his successor can be a Russian.
The members of parliament in the Baltic States think that by that Van der Linden has seriously exceeded his authority. “He is not allowed to meddle in the affairs of his succession. It is not a coincidence that he is supporting a Russian,” stated the Estonian member of parliament Marko Mihkelson.
According to an analysis of the American think tank The Jamestown Foundation, is the objectivity of Van der Linden come in the discussion as the president of PACE. A member of the Lower House of the Parliament of the Netherlands who is a member of the commission of human rights in the name of the VVD(4), shares the opinion.
The coming of Van der Linden was a friendly turn, says Schreurs. “We know each other from Limburg. René is an important man in Europe. His presence has been of tremendous help.”
The real estate project of Schreurs, V-park, is rising in the region of Vladimir, about 200 km to the east of Moscow. Beside V-park that costs 500 million euros, Schreurs plans to build another thirteen logistic centres in Russia.
Van der Linden says that the criticism against his person is politically motivated. “The relationship between Estonia and Russia is difficult. One makes personal attacks. I do not have business interests in Russia.”
Pge 6: Controversial first stone
With a friendly turn is René van der Linden said to involve business interests in his political function
Controversial first Stone
Background
* The president of PACE forfeits his impartiality.
* Estonians furious about “pro-Russian statements”.
* A Limburg party in Russia.
From our reporter Merijn Rengers
AMSTERDAM Almost nowhere the warm economical relationships between The Netherlands and Russia are so evident as in Vladimir. In this region, 200 kilometres to the east of Moscow, two businessmen from Limburg are building V-park, a large logistic centre at what soon is going to be “the motorway between Europe and China”.
V-park costs 500 million euros and is an initiative of Piet Schreurs, an adventurer for whom Limburg in 1999 had turned out to be too small. Schreurs (nicknamed “the Gipsy”) had ended up in Russia as the director of Frans Maas, a transport company in Limburg, and he wanted to start his own business. Henk Benjamins, at that time the chair of the management of Frans Maas, agreed, given that Schreurs went on working for the transporter that was quoted on the stock exchange.
Years later, when Benjamins has retired and Frans Maas is taken over by the Danish DFDS, the two have a free hand in Russia. Benjamins is (for one day in the week, from Venlo(5)) a supervisory director in the company of Schreurs, Noble House.
“V-park is the first logistic centre that Noble House is going to build in Russia. And we are going to erect another 13 centres of that kind,” says Benjamins. “It is good to let a share of activities take place through the Netherlands. In that case, the banks and investors know for sure that it is in orde with the flows of money.”
The first stonelaying of the project was meant to be a party, a party of Limburg. And who could add more lustre to the party than the former State Secretary René van der Linden, thought Schreurs.
The CDA-senator, an acknowledged networker, is an important man in Russia. Since 2005, he leads the parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), who is busy with human rights and democracy. That is an important European organ for Russians and the former Soviet States: many of the political conflicts between West-Europe and Russia are about that kind of issues.
“I know René from former times, from Venlo,” says Schreurs. “It has been of tremendous help that he came to lay the first stone. I said it this way: the region is proud that I have managed to organize it, and René had the opportunity to bring his club here once under attention.”
Schreurs can read and write with the Russians. “I am married with a Russian, live here and own companies here. I am busy in property development, guide western companies in the bureaucracy, and am active in the entertainment sector.”
For the rest, the in-laws of Schreurs are involved in politics. Clever? “You must not think that my business runs faster of cheaper in Vladimir than it would otherwise. It does not go this way in Russia.”
The party in V-park came extensively in the Russian news as well as the statements of the enthusiastic Schreurs obout the involvement of Van der Linden in the project. In an article that ended up on the website of the parent company Noble House, the president of PACE is even called ‘supervisor’.
All that would have escaped notice, if Van der Linden had not, shortly after that, during a working visit to the Baltic States, stroke out at the Estonian. Those discriminated, according to the PACE-president, the Russian minority in their land severely.
The statements initiated a great fury in Estonia. Polititians tumbled over each other to criticise the pro-Russian views of Van der Linden.
Marko Mihkelson, a member of PACE and a member of parliament in the alliance Pro Patria et Res Publica (‘for the fatherland and republic’): “Since long there have been rumours circulating in Strasbourg, where the Council of Europe has its seat, that Van der Linden is pleading the Russian case because he has interests there. I have started to check it and I came across fotos, videos and news reports about V-park.”
Mihkelson saw in the reports and the amicable speech of Van der Linden at the party in Vladimir the proof that the Limburger had interests in Russia. “According to the website, he has a position in Noble House. He speeches there and says he wishes to see a Russian as his successor in PACE. The company is owned by a friend of his. And in addition to that: what did he do there? He must defend human rights and not cut tapes at his friends businessmen.”
According to Van der Linden, Mihkelson has not understood anything of that. “I am worshipped in PACE. Of course I do not have any business interests in Russia. Mister Mihkelson employs methods that may have been usual in the communist time, but that are not acceptable any more. He should have telephoned me, then I had explained it to him, and all the publicity had not been necessary.”
Van der Linden says also that he has never mentioned anything about his successor. “That is absolutely not permissible. I have to remain neutral.”
Thereby his memory fails him, one can learn from the website of V-park. The ‘movie from the first stone ceremony’ that can ben watched there, shows, beside the song “Nikita” of Elton John and the pictures of a Russian Orthodox cleryman who consecrates a wall in Vladimir, the speech of Van der Linden.
Flanked by a Russian interpreter and standing in front of a poster of a local beauty, he gives high praises to his Russian relations. Similarly does Mikhail Margelov, the one who is tipped to be his successor at the European human rights commission. “I hope with all my heart that a Russian colleague can be the new president of PACE,” says Van der Linden there.
Confronted with the video, Van der Linden recovers himself. “I remember it exactly again,” according to the Limburger at a later stage. “I meant that a Russian must be able to compete for my office. And I am still of the same opinion.”
Whether that’s it, remains to be seen. Frans Weekers, a member of parliament for VVD from Limburg and also a member of PACE, says that Van der Linden has violated his impartiality. “René has done a lot of good deeds as the president of PACE, but he goes off the road publicly supporting a Russian. He should have realized that something like that leads to much ado in the Baltic States.”
Piet Schreurs, unintentionally the instigator of the commotion between his friend Van der Linden and the Estonians, hopes that it will be all right with René. “Ah, just like me, he comes from Limburg. We are thick-skinned.”
FOTOS Noble House:
Above: René van der Linden (on the right) talking to an interpreter and to the Russian cleryman who is going to inaugurate V-park. Van der Linden carries the plaquette that he is going to fasten during the ceremony of laying the first stone.
Below: The businessman from Limburg, Piet Schreurs, during the party of V-park receiving a Delft Blue tile from the Dutch conductor of the Cossacks’choir that is sponsored by him.
KGB-expert: “The Russian intelligence services have pre-digested it all.”
“Two years ago it is decided in Kremlin that Mikhail Margelov had to become the new president of PACE,” says Evgueni Limarev, a Russian consultant in the field of security affairs and an expert on FSB and SVR, the Russian intelligence services.
“There is a whole team harnessed for that purpose. Van der Linden and Schreurs are used in the Russian game to get Margelov, who maintains strong ties with the former KGB, on this post,”according to the security expert, who left Russia in 1999 and is operating from France.
Limarev, who went to school tegether with Margelov and remained to follow his activities, is a friend of André Litvinenko who was murdered in London last year. The murder (with the radioactive polonium) of the ex-KGB-er who had emigrated to Great Britain, was world news for weeks.
“Schreurs is not a great player in Russia. He would never have received permission from Moscow for such a big project if Russians had not seen profit for themselves. Politics and business just are combined, aren’t they.” According to Limarev, the deal of Noble House and the visit of Van der Linden to the logistic centre has everything to do with the strong grip of the intelligence service on the Russian politics and economy.
“The political clan around Margelov is behind this. In the past years they have gradually pulled Van der Linden into the Russion camp. That happens very subtly, unnoticed for the outside world. Look at Noble House. There work the confidants of the Margelov group in the company, they share the knowledge about the financing of the project and arrange the political spport, “says Limarev. According to the consulatant, the group-Margelov is one of the mighty Siloviki (the clans that originate from the KGB and that rule the politics and the business) in the Russia of Putin. “From the Russian perspective it is absolutely normal, but for West-Europeans it is another story, isn’t it.”
Controversial first Stone
Background
* The president of PACE forfeits his impartiality.
* Estonians furious about “pro-Russian statements”.
* A Limburg party in Russia.
From our reporter Merijn Rengers
AMSTERDAM Almost nowhere the warm economical relationships between The Netherlands and Russia are so evident as in Vladimir. In this region, 200 kilometres to the east of Moscow, two businessmen from Limburg are building V-park, a large logistic centre at what soon is going to be “the motorway between Europe and China”.
V-park costs 500 million euros and is an initiative of Piet Schreurs, an adventurer for whom Limburg in 1999 had turned out to be too small. Schreurs (nicknamed “the Gipsy”) had ended up in Russia as the director of Frans Maas, a transport company in Limburg, and he wanted to start his own business. Henk Benjamins, at that time the chair of the management of Frans Maas, agreed, given that Schreurs went on working for the transporter that was quoted on the stock exchange.
Years later, when Benjamins has retired and Frans Maas is taken over by the Danish DFDS, the two have a free hand in Russia. Benjamins is (for one day in the week, from Venlo(5)) a supervisory director in the company of Schreurs, Noble House.
“V-park is the first logistic centre that Noble House is going to build in Russia. And we are going to erect another 13 centres of that kind,” says Benjamins. “It is good to let a share of activities take place through the Netherlands. In that case, the banks and investors know for sure that it is in orde with the flows of money.”
The first stonelaying of the project was meant to be a party, a party of Limburg. And who could add more lustre to the party than the former State Secretary René van der Linden, thought Schreurs.
The CDA-senator, an acknowledged networker, is an important man in Russia. Since 2005, he leads the parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), who is busy with human rights and democracy. That is an important European organ for Russians and the former Soviet States: many of the political conflicts between West-Europe and Russia are about that kind of issues.
“I know René from former times, from Venlo,” says Schreurs. “It has been of tremendous help that he came to lay the first stone. I said it this way: the region is proud that I have managed to organize it, and René had the opportunity to bring his club here once under attention.”
Schreurs can read and write with the Russians. “I am married with a Russian, live here and own companies here. I am busy in property development, guide western companies in the bureaucracy, and am active in the entertainment sector.”
For the rest, the in-laws of Schreurs are involved in politics. Clever? “You must not think that my business runs faster of cheaper in Vladimir than it would otherwise. It does not go this way in Russia.”
The party in V-park came extensively in the Russian news as well as the statements of the enthusiastic Schreurs obout the involvement of Van der Linden in the project. In an article that ended up on the website of the parent company Noble House, the president of PACE is even called ‘supervisor’.
All that would have escaped notice, if Van der Linden had not, shortly after that, during a working visit to the Baltic States, stroke out at the Estonian. Those discriminated, according to the PACE-president, the Russian minority in their land severely.
The statements initiated a great fury in Estonia. Polititians tumbled over each other to criticise the pro-Russian views of Van der Linden.
Marko Mihkelson, a member of PACE and a member of parliament in the alliance Pro Patria et Res Publica (‘for the fatherland and republic’): “Since long there have been rumours circulating in Strasbourg, where the Council of Europe has its seat, that Van der Linden is pleading the Russian case because he has interests there. I have started to check it and I came across fotos, videos and news reports about V-park.”
Mihkelson saw in the reports and the amicable speech of Van der Linden at the party in Vladimir the proof that the Limburger had interests in Russia. “According to the website, he has a position in Noble House. He speeches there and says he wishes to see a Russian as his successor in PACE. The company is owned by a friend of his. And in addition to that: what did he do there? He must defend human rights and not cut tapes at his friends businessmen.”
According to Van der Linden, Mihkelson has not understood anything of that. “I am worshipped in PACE. Of course I do not have any business interests in Russia. Mister Mihkelson employs methods that may have been usual in the communist time, but that are not acceptable any more. He should have telephoned me, then I had explained it to him, and all the publicity had not been necessary.”
Van der Linden says also that he has never mentioned anything about his successor. “That is absolutely not permissible. I have to remain neutral.”
Thereby his memory fails him, one can learn from the website of V-park. The ‘movie from the first stone ceremony’ that can ben watched there, shows, beside the song “Nikita” of Elton John and the pictures of a Russian Orthodox cleryman who consecrates a wall in Vladimir, the speech of Van der Linden.
Flanked by a Russian interpreter and standing in front of a poster of a local beauty, he gives high praises to his Russian relations. Similarly does Mikhail Margelov, the one who is tipped to be his successor at the European human rights commission. “I hope with all my heart that a Russian colleague can be the new president of PACE,” says Van der Linden there.
Confronted with the video, Van der Linden recovers himself. “I remember it exactly again,” according to the Limburger at a later stage. “I meant that a Russian must be able to compete for my office. And I am still of the same opinion.”
Whether that’s it, remains to be seen. Frans Weekers, a member of parliament for VVD from Limburg and also a member of PACE, says that Van der Linden has violated his impartiality. “René has done a lot of good deeds as the president of PACE, but he goes off the road publicly supporting a Russian. He should have realized that something like that leads to much ado in the Baltic States.”
Piet Schreurs, unintentionally the instigator of the commotion between his friend Van der Linden and the Estonians, hopes that it will be all right with René. “Ah, just like me, he comes from Limburg. We are thick-skinned.”
FOTOS Noble House:
Above: René van der Linden (on the right) talking to an interpreter and to the Russian cleryman who is going to inaugurate V-park. Van der Linden carries the plaquette that he is going to fasten during the ceremony of laying the first stone.
Below: The businessman from Limburg, Piet Schreurs, during the party of V-park receiving a Delft Blue tile from the Dutch conductor of the Cossacks’choir that is sponsored by him.
KGB-expert: “The Russian intelligence services have pre-digested it all.”
“Two years ago it is decided in Kremlin that Mikhail Margelov had to become the new president of PACE,” says Evgueni Limarev, a Russian consultant in the field of security affairs and an expert on FSB and SVR, the Russian intelligence services.
“There is a whole team harnessed for that purpose. Van der Linden and Schreurs are used in the Russian game to get Margelov, who maintains strong ties with the former KGB, on this post,”according to the security expert, who left Russia in 1999 and is operating from France.
Limarev, who went to school tegether with Margelov and remained to follow his activities, is a friend of André Litvinenko who was murdered in London last year. The murder (with the radioactive polonium) of the ex-KGB-er who had emigrated to Great Britain, was world news for weeks.
“Schreurs is not a great player in Russia. He would never have received permission from Moscow for such a big project if Russians had not seen profit for themselves. Politics and business just are combined, aren’t they.” According to Limarev, the deal of Noble House and the visit of Van der Linden to the logistic centre has everything to do with the strong grip of the intelligence service on the Russian politics and economy.
“The political clan around Margelov is behind this. In the past years they have gradually pulled Van der Linden into the Russion camp. That happens very subtly, unnoticed for the outside world. Look at Noble House. There work the confidants of the Margelov group in the company, they share the knowledge about the financing of the project and arrange the political spport, “says Limarev. According to the consulatant, the group-Margelov is one of the mighty Siloviki (the clans that originate from the KGB and that rule the politics and the business) in the Russia of Putin. “From the Russian perspective it is absolutely normal, but for West-Europeans it is another story, isn’t it.”
(1) Christen Democratisch Appél – The Christian Democrats of the Netherlands, presently a coalition party. (Tr.)
(2) A position similar to that of a Minister but lower in the Netherlands. It is every time a political decision whether a Member of the government is appointed as a Minister or a State Secretary: in some governments there is for example the Minister of Education, in another government, there is the State Secretary of Education.
(3) Limburg is one of the historic Low Countries. North-Limburg is one of the twelve Provinces of the Kingdom of the Netherlands; South-Limburg is one of the Provinces of Belgium. (Tr.)
(4) Volkspartij voor Vrijheid en Democratie – The Liberal Party in the Netherlands, presently in the opposition. (Tr.)
(5) A town in the Netherlands. (Tr.)
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The daily circulation is 326,000 copies in 2002, which makes it the third biggest newspaper of the Netherlands, after the De Telegraaf and Algemeen Dagblad. The total Dutch newspaper circulation in 2002 was 1.9 million.