The Netherlands and Europe have lived for far too long under the illusion that prosperity, security and strategic autonomy can exist without effort, without risk and without their own productive strength. That era is over. Anyone who still thinks that a society can be kept afloat mainly by regulating, importing, subsidising and morally reassuring one another has failed to understand how civilisation is built.

The reality is simpler and harsher. A country that neglects its industry, weakens its work ethic, suppresses its appetite for risk and normalises dependence on others will sooner or later lose its backbone. First economically, then socially, and ultimately politically. Such a society does not slide away in a single blow, but slowly sinks through the ice — until it discovers that the ground has already disappeared.

All systems obey the same law

Whether the subject is energy, radiation, industry, upbringing, transport or geopolitical dependence, the same basic rule applies everywhere. A system that is never stressed, never builds up resistance and never produces for itself becomes weak. A body without stimulation loses its defences. An economy without its own industry loses resilience. A society that seeks to eliminate every risk in advance loses its ability to sustain progress.

That is precisely where the Netherlands and much of Europe now stand. Over the past decades, everything has been geared towards avoiding friction. Work had to become easier. Production could be moved elsewhere. Physical risk had to disappear. Strategic dependence was sold as ‘efficiency’. Cheap imports were mistaken for intelligent policy. Security was confused with comfort. And meanwhile, the foundations of a mature economy were dismantled bit by bit.

The price of outsourced strength

Years of outsourcing and addiction to imports have weakened Europe’s industrial immune system. China grew into the factory of the world, while Europe increasingly positioned itself as purchaser, regulator and end user. In the short term, this delivered cheaper products and higher margins, but in the long term it came at the expense of knowledge, manufacturing capacity, craftsmanship and strategic independence.

That effect is now visible in critical supply chains: raw materials, batteries, solar panels, pharmaceutical components, electronics and parts of the machine-building industry. In several sectors, it is not only production that has disappeared, but also the industrial memory: the people, routines, tools and mindset needed to scale up again on home soil. The conclusion is harsh but unavoidable: what has been neglected does not return without causing considerable damage.

More work, more productivity, more backbone

The reconstruction of economic self-reliance will not happen by itself. It requires more work, more discipline and greater productive participation from the population. Anyone who thinks everything can still be solved with subsidies, spreadsheets and another technology programme is missing the real shortfall: too few people who actually build, make, repair, maintain and organise.

Machines and robots have their place, but they are no miracle cure. In many sectors they are expensive, complex and energy-intensive, and dependent on capital, software and supply chains that are themselves geopolitically vulnerable. The easy automation gains have already been captured to a large extent. What remains is the old truth that earlier generations still understood: a society becomes strong when its people are strong, skilled, willing and productive.

In practical terms, this means that the number of serious working hours will have to increase, that craftsmanship must regain its status and that productivity must no longer be treated solely as a technical issue, but also as a moral and cultural one. The generation of our parents and grandparents did not wait for perfect conditions; with limited means, hard work and a high tolerance for discomfort, they laid the foundations on which later generations could build. Anyone who wants to preserve prosperity will have to learn that attitude again.

No prosperity without risk

A society that seeks to neutralise every physical, technical or economic risk in advance cuts off its own future. This applies to industry, energy, mobility and entrepreneurship. There is no path to prosperity without burdens, danger, responsibility and the possibility of failure.

That does not mean that recklessness should become the norm. It does mean that there is a fundamental difference between sensible protection and paralysing overprotection. When every project is tied up in rules, every physical profession viewed with suspicion, every industrial investment lost in legal fog and every technological step paralysed by fear, prosperity is not being protected but thrown into the waste bin in advance.

That is what happens too often now. The Netherlands no longer uses consensus-building to pool strength, but to render strength harmless. Everything is flattened, slowed down, traded away and postponed until nothing remains of the original ambition. The result is not harmony, but stagnation.

Energy, industry and mature responsibility

That is precisely why the energy debate, too, deserves a mature tone. Modern societies do not exist without risk. Not with fossil fuels, not with nuclear energy, not with international trade, not with infrastructure and not with medical technology. The question, therefore, is not how all risks can disappear, but how a society ranks, concentrates, controls and bears them.

Nuclear energy fits within that mature framework. Not as a fairy tale without danger, but as a technology with high energy density, limited waste volumes and a residual waste stream that can, in principle, remain concentrated and manageable. This is fundamentally different from a fossil-fuel model in which harm is dispersed through the air, the climate and geopolitical dependence.

Here too, the same lesson applies as in industry: do not reject everything because it carries risk, but choose systems that combine manageable risks with structural strength. A civilisation can only move forward if it accepts that maturity does not mean danger disappears, but that people learn to bear it.

What must happen now

The change of course must be clear and uncompromising:

• Rebuild domestic industry in sectors that are strategically, energetically and socially essential.
• Value work again, not only as a right but also as a duty and a source of civilisational strength.
• Restore status to physical and technical craftsmanship in education, policy and culture.
• Name risks honestly, but no longer use them as an excuse to undertake nothing.
• Systematically reduce dependence on external powers wherever it affects vital functions.
• Replace the administrative reflex of endless deliberation and delay with direction, discipline and execution.

Conclusion

The age of complacency is over. The Netherlands and Europe have a choice: either rebuild the foundations themselves, restore productive strength and accept that prosperity always entails effort and risk; or continue with consensus-building, shielding, outsourcing and moral reassurance until the system slowly empties out from within.

Those who choose the first path choose discomfort, discipline and recovery. Those who choose the second choose decline — slowly, neatly, regulated and ultimately irreversible.

There is no alternative. We must get back to doing the work ourselves. Not later. Now.