Placement report Gerjan Veurink - S2785668 Student MA International Relations & MA Middle Eastern Studies University of Groningen February 2020 – August 2020

(1)

1

Placement report Gerjan Veurink - S2785668

Student MA International Relations & MA Middle Eastern Studies

University of Groningen

February 2020 – August 2020

Ministry of Foreign Affairs (BZ)

North Africa and Middle East Department (DAM)

North Africa (NA) and Middle East Peace Process Division (MOVP) Supervisor BZ: Anne-Marije van de Staaij

(2)

2

Introduction

In this placement report I will describe my placement at the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs from February 2020 until August 2020. The placement is part of my master programs in International Relations (International Security) and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Groningen. During this placement, I worked at the North Africa (NA) and Middle East Peace Process divisions (MOVP) at the North Africa and Middle East Department (DAM). While this report has been written in English, the working language at BZ is Dutch.

DAM is responsible for the Netherlands’ bilateral relations with the countries in North Africa and the Middle East. In close cooperation with our embassies and other partners at home and abroad DAM works hard to promote international legal order, peace, and security. DAM ensures that the Netherlands’ interests are optimally served and aims to keep the Netherlands in a safe, prosperous, and internationally strong position.

In the following chapters, I will tell more about the process towards a placement, the activities that I have done, the skills I have learned and the tips I would give to students who would like to do an internship at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Orientation

My interests can be described as quite broad. However, concerning the International Security track, my main interest lies in the Middle Eastern region as I developed this interest during my bachelor and other master program in Middle Eastern Studies. During my bachelor, I wrote papers regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and I studied a semester in Israel in 2017. During my semester abroad, I got interested in the relationship between environmental issues and conflicts in the Middle East and as such, I have written both my BA and MA thesis on this topic. Also, I have a particular interest in Israel, since the small country has an important position in the political and security situation in the Middle East and understanding security in relation to Israel is vital for understanding broader security dilemmas in the region.

Therefore, when I was looking at future placement possibilities, I looked at organisations that covered these aspects. Possible organizations could be governmental (e.g. Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Defence), but also other non-profit organisations that for example, focus on projects in the region. I started by looking at options in the Netherlands and abroad. I preferred to look at placements in Israel/Palestinian Territories or The Hague first, before looking beyond these areas and I preferred a placement that is focused on policy making rather than research as I wanted to focus more on practical experience.

(4)

4 Placement vacancies at BZ (and other international organisations) can usually be found at: werkenvoorinternationaleorganisaties.nl. This is also were I started. Fortunately for me, I found a placement after applying for a few vacancies at BZ so there was no need to look beyond BZ opportunities. I applied to internship positions at the embassy in Tel Aviv, the Netherlands Representative Office in Ramallah and at the Ministry itself in The Hague. After sending my CV and motivation letter I was invited for the next step in the application procedure: (1) a 30-minute interview with a policy officer and senior policy officer from DAM and (2) a writing assignment of 30 minutes immediately after.

Interview and written assignment

The interview was mainly focused on the content of the internship, the learning objectives, and my knowledge regarding the activities of the department. During the interview I was asked the usual questions regarding my motivation for an internship at DAM.

What helped me during the interview is that I made sure that I had enough background information of the current political situation in the region and the Dutch policy regarding these matters. In this way, I was able to explain which matters are important for the Netherlands in North Africa, Israel, and the Palestinian Territories (e.g. democratization, migration, human rights etc.). In addition, I thought about several important learning objectives for myself and I noted personal qualities, strengths ant weaknesses beforehand. Moreover, I found out is that it is very important to explain what you want to gain from the internship and why BZ is the perfect organization for this. I emphasized that I wanted to improve certain professional skills (e.g. networking skills, organizational skills etc.) and that I wanted to contribute to the work that is done at DAM and bring something instead of only taking something (work experience) as an intern. With regard to the latter, I explained that during my studies I independently researched the relationship between water issues, conflicts and peace building practices in the Middle East and that I wanted to apply this knowledge in practice by turning knowledge into policy.

The written assignment was, in my case, about the writing of a news bulletin. I received several sources about the recent situation in Libya which I had to summarize in a few bullet points. The purpose of the assignment was to test my analytical skills and my ability to distinguish between main features and details. I found this assignment quite difficult, especially because of the time limit of 30 minutes. While I was initially more nervous about the interview, I found the writing assignment more challenging. With regards to this, if I have to make such an assignment again, I would scan the sources quickly and organize the sources by subject and date. After that, it is easier to take over the headlines

(5)

5 and aspects of the sources that are important for the Netherlands (in case of Libya aspects that are related to foreign interventions for example).

A few hours after the interview and written assignment I received the great news that I was accepted for the internship position at DAM. After that, I had to start preparing for a new situation in a working environment in The Hague, something completely different in comparison with the study environment in Groningen.

Preparation

Before the start of my internship at DAM I had certain expectations about my placement. I expected that the placement would show me how my field of study works in in practice. During the placement I wanted to gain more insight in the skills that I already possess and the skills that I can further develop during my future career. Also, I expected that an internship at BZ would help me building a valuable network.

Since my working place would be in The Hague, I had to move to the other side of the country. In general, I found it easy to find a room in The Hague. Most of the shared apartments that came available in February were open for application in January, so this is when I started to apply for several apartments. There are many options for short-term rooms (3-6 months) available in The Hague and after applying I had the luxury to choose between three different apartments. For me, most important was an apartment close to a tram stop and supermarket and the amount of rent. The Hague is not cheap, but it is possible to find shared apartments (3-4 bedrooms) with a living room on a central location for around 500 euro’s a month, which makes it definitely cheaper in comparison with Amsterdam, Utrecht or Leiden for example.

Once settled in, I have been able to enjoy The Hague for about six weeks until the homeworking measures came into practice. Normally, there are plenty of options to build up a social live in The Hague as an intern at BZ as StageCo (the BZ internship committee which organises several trips outside BZ and interesting sessions) organises weekly social activities with the more than 100 other interns at BZ. Unfortunately, we were not able to maintain these activities as they used to be after March. The homeworking measures meant working 100% from home until June, and 80% in June and July. Therefore, I made the decision to cancel my rental contract in The Hague and move temporarily to my parents place in Overijssel where I stayed for the rest of my placement period and from where I worked digitally with my colleagues.

(6)

6

Placement at DAM

DAM is a regional directorate of the Region Pool within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Region Pool consists of embassies abroad and the regional departments in The Hague. The Region Pool is the centre of expertise for country and regional knowledge and guarantees coherent foreign policy and coherent foreign action. For an overview of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ organisation, see this link. DAM, which is responsible for the Netherlands; bilateral relations with the countries on North Africa and the Middle East, contributes to the Dutch commitment to these countries in a European and international context and collaborates with other departments, ministries, Dutch embassies and representations abroad. DAM consists of a management team and four divisions: 1) North Africa, 2) Middle East Peace Process, 3) Iran, Yemen, and Gulf States and 4) Mashreq.

Since the start of my internship I have been able to work for six weeks in the Hague. The first six weeks were overall very stimulating. Most of my tasks (which will be explained below) can be done from home but in a different way. Unfortunately, this does not mean that I experienced the internship as I normally should have but overall, I think that me and my colleagues made the best out of it. Working together on tasks and networking are far more difficult when it is done from home, and less fun. In the beginning I hoped this would be a temporary measure until mid-April, however only since June I was able to work one day a week from the office in The Hague again.

Since I do my internship at two divisions (NA & MOVP) my tasks were initially divided between the two divisions but in practice I spent more time with the MOVP division. Besides my work for the two divisions I am also a board member of the internship committee StageCo. More on this will be explained in the next chapters.

NA

The North Africa cluster consists of five policy officers, responsible for each North African state (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt). NA deals with themes such as democratization, migration and security that are important for the region. As NA is made up of policy officers that are responsible for their own countries, the division is operating more individually with regards to the bilateral relations between the Netherlands and North African states but works together on overarching themes. Therefore, I focused mostly on one or two countries at the same time to keep the amount if information manageable, especially considering my work at the other division and StageCo. Initially these countries were Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya, but since the COVID-19 measures came into practice in March this changed. After that, my responsibilities were mostly concerned with some overarching themes, such as writing news bulletins regarding the COVID-19 situation in the DAM region and regarding migration developments in North Africa.

(7)

7 The (1) COVID-19 bulletin and (2) migration bulletin are two weekly bulletins that cover the (1) regional developments regarding COVID-19 and measures of local authorities and, (2) regional developments regarding migration that are important for the Dutch interests in the region. For me, this meant that I had a lot of contact with our embassies in the region as the embassies are closest to the situation on the ground and have access to the most recent information. I found out that it is important to communicate clearly with colleagues that are working abroad. As such, I have been able to work on one of my key competences that I wanted to develop: cooperation. I wanted to develop this competence more because as a student, you do most of the work individually. At BZ, it is impossible to do all the work individually. For most of the tasks (e.g. writing bulletins), the results are heavily dependant on the quality of the input that is delivered by colleagues that are expert on a topic. As such, communication expectations clearly and involving colleagues as early as possible in the process is vital to get the results that we are aiming for.

Besides my weekly tasks concerning the bulletins, I spend a lot of time on analysing (political) reports and media. One of my responsibilities was to analyse official reports, that are drafted by colleagues abroad and distributed through the BZ network, regarding the effects of COVID-19 on the socio-economic, political, and humanitarian situation and update COVD-19 country reports based on this information. Other tasks concerned the daily scanning of media regarding the repatriation of Dutch citizens from Morocco, secretarial tasks during conferences and organisational tasks (such as organising an interesting digital breakfast/lunch lecture for colleagues with experts from Clingendael). Regarding the latter, I received great appreciation from my colleagues as I became a MS Teams expert when face-to-face conferences were no longer possible. I am still not sure whether I am completely happy with this ‘area of expertise’, however, this might be a positive learning aspect during my internship as I expect that digital skills are becoming more important in the period ahead. As such, my placement at BZ also provided me with experience on cooperating with colleagues in a digital way, something that can be an asset as well during my further professional career.

MOVP

The Middle East Peace Process division within BZ is the main point of contact for every aspect that deals with Israel, the Palestinian Territories, or with the peace process. The MOVP team focuses on political developments in the region, bilateral relations with both Israel and the Palestinian Authorities and trilateral cooperation and the peace process. As such, MOVP works differently in comparison with NA as the division is more operating as a team since many issues we deal with regarding Israel and the Palestinian Territories fall under the umbrella of the peace process. My tasks depended heavily on the political situation in the region and the developments regarding the peace process.

(8)

8 I spend most of my hours working for MOVP related tasks. I think this was partly the result of my own preference and experience in the region (during my BA Middle Eastern Studies I studied a semester in Israel), and the fact that the division itself operates as a team. Regarding the latter, I found this very helpful as an intern, especially because I spend most of my internship at home behind a laptop working digitally. In practice this meant that the MOVP team met regularly to discuss issues that are at stake and actions that must be taken. As an intern, I got automatically involved in all the processes and it gave the perfect opportunity to experience policy related issues from the start till implementation. Nevertheless, it is always important to stay pro-active. I learned that many of my colleagues appreciate a pro-active attitude which can help to get the most out of the internship.

One of the main tasks as an intern at MOVP is the writing of answers for citizen inquiries, many citizen inquiries in my case. Since the start of my internship in February 2020, one of the main subjects we had to respond to was Trump’s vision for peace between Israel and the Palestinians: Peace to Prosperity, and later on Israeli plans for annexing parts of the West Bank. Citizen inquiries could contain a call to the Dutch Government to support the US Peace Plan and Israeli plans for annexation or contain a call to strongly reject these plans. Dealing with these inquiries is very instructive and I learned a lot about political sensitivity and the balancing of different interests. One the one hand, it is important to explain our vision on the matter and on the other hand, this must be done a certain amount of respect for other points of views. Moreover, handling citizen inquiries helped me to understand the working of BZ as an organisation and the involvement of different departments within the Ministry on certain subjects. Depending on the subject of the letter, it is necessary to coordinate the answer to an inquiry with the responsible departments to provide a coherent answer that is in line with the governments’ position.

The supervision during my internship was very well organised. Anne-Marije and I met on a weekly basis to discuss my workload for the week, difficulties, and opportunities. This is also how I got involved in the preparation of a project concerning water related issues in Israel and the Palestinian Territories. Since Anne-Marije was one of the policy officers with whom I had my interview, she knew that I had an academic background in the study of water issues and conflicts. As such, I had the chance to assist with a project that aims (1) to get better insight in the status of water resources in Israel and the Palestinian Territories, and (2) to contribute to the Dutch efforts on the trilateral dialogue with Israel and the Palestinian Territories. The project, that is focused on generating hydrological data, will be conducted in close cooperation with a Dutch university. I contributed to the preparation of the project by organising conference calls between BZ and the project team that is responsible for the implementation of the project and by doing secretarial

(9)

9 work. Moreover, I assisted a policy officer based in Ramallah & Tel Aviv with the writing of the project assessment (or “Beoordelingsmemorandum / Bemo” in Dutch).

In a Bemo it is justified why a certain project should be funded, how it fits into the policy framework and which risks are involved with the project. This is where I was able to see knowledge and my study background into practice, especially in relation to international security and Middle Eastern Studies. The implementation of such a project depends heavily on the political situation on the ground. Analysing the context and assessing the risks that come with the implementation of the project was a great way for understanding policy making in light of IR and Middle Eastern studies.

Other tasks that I did at MOVP were organising weekly video conferences with the embassy in Tel Aviv and the Netherlands Representative Office in Ramallah, updating country files and writing short situation reports on COVID-19, assisting with the answering of parliamentary questions, analysing media articles, following an online training course on Dutch water policy and writing a bulletin about the Israeli plans for settlement expansion in the West Bank for the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

StageCo

StageCo, the BZ internship committee, organises every other week lunches and drinks with other BZ interns. A great way to get to know people and to share experiences about the internship. Besides social activities, StageCo organises trips to e.g. the International Criminal Court, embassies in The Hague, and private companies with a strong international focus. I have been part of the StageCo board since the beginning of my placement. The first three months I started as secretary and in the last three months I took the position as chairman.

While I am quite positive about my possibilities as an intern for both divisions during COVID-19, StageCo was a real bummer. While I initially hoped to train my organising and networking skills, it has been difficult to continue StageCo after March, when everyone at BZ was obliged to work from home. The more serious activities StageCo initially organised, also during my first six weeks, were put on hold. The involvement of BZ interns with our activities decreased sharply immediately after the implementation the COVID-19 measures. As such, it was not worthwhile any more to organise large scale (digital) events. Instead, we organised small social digital activities occasionally, e.g. digital coffee breaks, digital lunches, and digital pub quizzes. We continued the distribution of our newsletter and we provided information to other interns about the effects of the COVID-19 measures on their internship, but we were not able to continue StageCo as we hoped to do in the first place.

(10)

10

Connection with study

With regards to the connection between IR and my placement at DAM, I found it very interesting to gain practical experience in the field after years of studying theory. I would recommend to every student to do a placement as part of the master program or/and if possible, during your bachelor studies. Within the master’s program of IR (International Security), I choose the core modules Maps and Power & Environment, Geopolitics, and the Human. While there is a gap between theory and practice, key learning aspects of the master’s program do come back in the work field. IR is focused on theory and research is done by applying a theoretical framework while the work at BZ is more executive in its nature.

Moreover, where the masters program focuses more on general IR the work at BZ is of course strongly connected to policy within a Dutch and European context. This aspect is very interesting to connect to the study. For example, during the core module Maps and Power we discussed how mapping practices are dependant on the context of the mapmakers and how maps frame the way in which the mapmaker sees the world. I think we could say the same thing about policy instead of maps. In that sense, I have been able to see in practice how Dutch foreign policy is not necessarily the product of the world as it is, but it depicts the Dutch and European understanding on international politics and order.

As such, studying IR (and in my case Middle Eastern Studies for the greater part) helps to critically engage with certain subjects in the work field. The fact that IR is interdisciplinary in its character is also an asset, as the work at BZ is connecting aspects that range from disciplines such as political science, history and law to economics, finance, and many other disciplines. A placement at BZ is relevant for IR students, Middle Eastern Studies students, and students from all other disciplines. As an IR and Middle Eastern Studies student, a placement at DAM was the perfect position for what I have learned and the perfect place where I could apply my knowledge into practice.

Career prospects

I really enjoyed my placement at BZ, and I would like to work here. I find the combination of working of policy themes with an international approach very interesting and the variety of the organization suits me. One way to work at BZ is by applying for the diplomatic training course “het klasje”. This could be an option for me, but this would also mean that I must work on, among many other severe selection criteria, my third language if I want to make it through the selection procedure. Something to consider for the future. Another interesting career start is with the “Rijkstraineeship” as this would give me the opportunity to work for other interesting Governmental organizations as well.

(11)

11 I consider my placement at BZ as a strong asset for future applications. I find it very useful that I gained experience at a Governmental organization with an international focus. During my internship, I also learned more about my own skills, strengths and weaknesses and it gave me the opportunity to work on my competences.

Tips for other students

• First, wait until the homeworking measures are ending. BZ has put placement possibilities on hold for now.

• While many interns have applied numerous times for many different positions, I think that it is better to send a handful of applications with a good quality than focusing on quantity. • While IR students are obligated to find a placement of at least two months (10 ECTS), I would

strongly recommend looking for placements of at least 5/6 months. It takes a while before you get familiar with an organisation, especially in a high-paced environment as BZ.

• Your study background does not necessarily matter, BZ is looking for interns from all disciplines.

• Ask people within your network if they know someone who works/worked at BZ and get in touch with them.

Conclusion

My internship period at BZ was very instructive and I learned a great deal about the practical side of IR. Unfortunately, I had to work from home since half March, but also digitally I acquired the necessary skills and I was able to develop most of my learning goals. I would recommend everyone that is interested in an internship at BZ to apply. Especially a placement at DAM is strongly recommended. Colleagues at DAM are very helpful, DAM consists of a young team and as an intern you immediately feel as being part of the team instead of being only an intern. Working at BZ means that you can work on topics that are relevant for society and able to develop both on a professional level and personal level.

Placement report Gerjan Veurink - S2785668 Student MA International Relations & MA Middle Eastern Studies University of Groningen February 2020 – August 2020