THE HAGUE — Frans Timmermans rose to the pinnacle of European Union politics.

But it was his own Brussels legacy that sabotaged his attempt to defeat the far right.

Timmermans resigned as the leader of the GreenLeft-Labor alliance Wednesday night after a stunning underperformance in the Dutch general election, with the party losing five seats since the last election and ending up in fourth place.

“It’s clear that I, for whatever reason, couldn’t convince people to vote for us,” Timmermans said in a speech in Rotterdam after the exit polls were published Wednesday night. “It’s time that I take a step back and transfer the leading of our movement to the next generation.”

The pan-European Party of European Socialists considered Timmermans living proof that progressive, left-wing politics are in for a comeback after a decade of losing ground to the right.

To them, Timmermans was an international statesman with a real a chance at scoring the Netherland’s premiership, 23 years since the last government led by Social Democrats.

But for Dutch voters, he was unable to shake his reputation as an outsider and elitist. And it was precisely that international experience that doomed him as a stodgy statesman in The Hague.

As a European commissioner for nearly a decade, half of it spent as Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s second-in-command, Timmermans delivered the flagship EU Green Deal package to fight climate change.

The ailing GreenLeft-Labor alliance — which only recently began an official merger process — also put stock in Timmermans, bringing him back home to lead the charge against the surge of far-right Party for Freedom (PVV) in the national election of 2023. But his party failed to win the top slot, and was sidelined in government formation.

Party leaders on the right demonized Timmermans, branding him as a green fanatic who would misspend taxpayer cash, should he be given the chance to govern.

Dilan Yeşilgöz, the leader of Mark Rutte’s liberal People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD), called him “arrogant” and “elitist” on several occasions — as did other leaders.

Hopes for Timmerman rose again this past June when the right-wing government, led by Geert Wilders’ PVV, collapsed. With all major parties now pledging to sideline the far right, and with favorable polls placing his party second after PVV, Timmermans seemed to have another shot at leading the next Dutch government.

But much as he tried, Timmermans failed to get rid of his EU past and lead his own country.

Brussels arrogance

During the EU election in 2019, Timmermans was the lead candidate of the European Socialists, campaigning across EU countries and on many occasions speaking the local tongue — as he is fluent in six languages. This impressive international flair earned him supporters in Brussels — but not so much in his home country.

Since his return to Dutch politics, Timmermans’ problem has been that he is seen as an intellectual focused on foreign affairs, coming from the outside to lecture Dutch voters, campaign expert Alex Klusman and Leiden University politics professor Sarah de Lange told POLITICO ahead of the vote.

“He has a handicap, because he’s perceived as this relatively well-off cosmopolitan” — an image that creates tension with the idea of defending “the interests of ordinary Dutch citizens,” said de Lange.

Over the years, Timmermans has grappled with being seen as arrogant after years of keeping his head out of the country — first, as state secretary of EU affairs and minister of foreign affairs for seven years, followed by his tenure at the European Commission for nine years, said Klusman, who is the CEO of the BKB campaigning agency.

When he came back to the Netherlands in 2023, Dutch citizens saw Timmermans as someone who was lecturing them — “telling them what to do, and at the same time somebody who had lost complete contact with what the Netherlands had become,” Klusman said. By that time, Klusman pointed out, the country had become widely dominated by right-wing politicians distrustful of the EU.

For a man who had been in charge of devising the core of the Green Deal — now used in a counter-campaign by portraying it as killing Europe’s businesses — it was not a smooth landing.

An article by Dutch newspaper NRC ahead of the vote argued that GreenLeft-Labor is increasingly associated with words like elitist, cosmopolitan and moralistic.

“This image, partly the result of years of hard work by Geert Wilders, has stuck with many voters,” the analysis said. “GreenLeft-Labor is finding it difficult to shake that off.”

Timmermans himself was keenly aware of that image, which he fought hard to leave behind.

The perception of him as an outsider in his own country, Timmermans said when asked by POLITICO prior to the Dutch vote, “was very relevant two years ago when I came back — but last year, year-and-a-half, this has not been an issue.”

“People remember that I was in government, that I was in the European Commission. But it’s no longer ‘the guy who comes to lecture us,’ because I’ve been active in Dutch politics again for two full years in the forefront of national politics,” he added.

Failed makeover

Timmermans indeed worked hard to change his image. He sought to convey a more energetic, healthier politician campaigning across the country, while living in his hometown Maastricht to show he is connected to his roots.

That makeover included dramatic weight loss after a gastric bypass surgery he underwent a year ago — which he descrribed at length in an interview with Dutch daily De Telegraaf, known to be especially critical of Timmermans, to try make him more palatable to right-wing voters. 

But, according to Klusman, key for Timmermans were the “two years of humbleness lessons” doing parliamentary work as opposition leader after he lost the election in 2023.

“In the beginning, he would never say that he wasn’t right, that he made a wrong remark or a wrong position in a debate,” said Klusman. But “now he’d think, and then he’d say, ‘no, I made a mistake.’” Timmermans began to listen instead of lecture, Klusman added.

As the EU’s Green Deal architect, he brought the message home by focusing on the social aspects of climate change — for example, Timmermans tapped the narrative that building out renewable energy will reduce the energy bills for Dutch households.

But despite all efforts, personal opinion ratings a few days before the election showed the wider Dutch population did not like Timmermans, giving him among the lowest grades on Oct. 27.

“He is clearly not perceived as a new Timmermans,” said de Lange. “He’s very much perceived as the same figure he was in 2023” — as a party leader with strong credentials as a minister and a commissioner — “but far less as a fighter in politics and campaigning,” she concluded.

Eva Hartog and Hanne Cokelaere contributed to this report.