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This article originally appeared in 80 years of the Labour Party - On the shoulders of giants | JUBILE NUMBER RED
After a long night, the train arrives at the station in Kyiv. The sun is shining brightly and the temperature is pleasant. Nothing this morning indicates that just over 24 hours ago bombs came down on apartment buildings scattered across the city. As Putin talks of peace, 21 people are killed.
It is August 2025 and, together with Frans Timmermans and Kati Piri, I have travelled to the Ukrainian capital for an appointment with President Zelensky. I am tense, but there is no sign of nerves on Frans' part. On the way, he has already told stories about trips he made in the past with his political father Max van der Stoel.
I have sometimes compared working for the PvdA to playing football for the current Ajax team. You try so hard, but you never match the level of Cruijff or Van Basten. For people with a heart for our party's international work, Van der Stoel is of the calibre of Cruijff (perhaps the quieter version). During his ministership in the Den Uyl government (‘73-’77), he had a share in the realisation of the Helsinki Accords.
“I feel that I ... lived in the shadow of the Helsinki process,” Van der Stoel said on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the accords. The accords may have perpetuated the status quo of divided Europe - a key demand of the Soviet Union - but they also included a passage on human rights. This passage served as a tool to hold regimes accountable and later proved crucial in dismantling communism.
When you go on holiday abroad, often the first thing people start talking about is Dutch footballers (there are Cruijff and Van Basten again), but in Prague or Athens you are very likely to hear the name Van der Stoel. Much to the displeasure of the communist regime, he met Jan Patočka of the Charta 77 movement in 1977. Never before had a foreign dignitary dared to do so. The memory of Van der Stoel still lives on in the Czech capital with its own monument and city park.
Back to Kyiv. After a short stop at our hotel, we are picked up for the appointment with Zelensky. The president's office is in the middle of a residential area of the city. We pass four checkpoints before we reach the building. The windows are covered with wooden boards and inside are large sandbags. In contrast, the vestibule where we are asked to wait is over-lit; fake gold and large mirrors are supposed to give the room a presidential look.
Sometimes there are moments in life when you know something special is about to happen. I have heard about special encounters from my predecessors. Jan Marinus Wiersma, together with Maarten van Traa one of the party's longest-serving international secretaries, told me, for example, about Nelson Mandela's 1990 visit to the PvdA party council in the Meervaart in Amsterdam. The freedom fighter's visit had been arranged only days before by Wim Kok at a meeting of the Socialist International in Bonn, Germany. Mikhail Gorbachev's 2003 visit to the PvdA congress in Groningen also captures the imagination. This moment fits into this list.
Zelensky takes ample time to welcome us. He has unparalleled charisma and infectious energy, but it cannot disguise his deep bags under his eyes. How could it be otherwise: for almost four years, he has been guiding his country through war and travelling the world to gather support. Halfway through the meeting, he grabs a piece of paper and outlines the situation at the front. “This here is the death zone.” It is a zone of about 10 kilometres where anyone who steps into it is immediately besieged by drones. Modern warfare is as brutal as ever.
Afterwards, one of Zelensky's staff members is waiting for us. As one of the founders of the SD platform - a platform of activists working for a just future for the country - he was introduced to the work of the Max van der Stoel Foundation some 10 years ago. “I will never forget what your party has done for us,” he said. It makes me proud.
After the Fall of the Wall, our party played an important role in supporting sister parties in Central and Eastern Europe with the Alfred Mozer Foundation (which merged with the Evert Vermeer Foundation into the Max van der Stoel Foundation in 2013). Many of these parties are still represented in the Party of European Socialists and Democrats (PES), which was founded in The Hague in 1992 under the leadership of Wim Kok.
On the way back in the van to the border with Poland, we are mostly silent. Exactly 50 years after the Helsinki Accords, the challenge ahead of us suddenly seems quite daunting: how are we going to prevent Ukraine from falling to its knees, and can we, as Europe, survive in a world increasingly governed by the law of the jungle?
If our party's history shows us one thing it is that the fight for justice takes a long haul - along with perhaps a healthy form of naivety. How else did we succeed in bringing Mandela and Gorbachev to the Netherlands, or an emphasis on human rights in Helsinki? Because those who stand up for principles in a world of brutal power - whether brave Ukrainians or fighters of justice elsewhere - deserve our support. Let us take that on board as a mission for the new party.
