The Ems-Dollart Predicament

The central case in this thesis is a border dispute between the Netherlands and Germany in the Ems-Dollart estuary. The dispute has been traced back to 1464, and has been almost continuously in place until the present day. The main question posed in the thesis is: ‘Why did the Dutch government refrain from resolving the Ems-Dollart dispute with Germany after 1945’. In terms of international relations theory being used, the thesis underpins the importance of looking beyond a state-centric approach. Dutch-Germans relations are therefore placed in a wider context of political and economic interests of both countries. The political and economic interests as to why there is a predicament change with the historical circumstances, while the core of the dispute – the border delimitation itself – has remained firmly in place. The political-psychological relationship between the Netherlands and Germany in the years after the Second World War was an important impetus as to why the dispute remained unresolved in the years after the war. At the same time, new developments in maritime law in combination with newly arisen economic interests in the area in the form of a transboundary gas deposit, made it so that the two countries came to a series of bilateral agreements which took into account the (economic) interests of both countries, while at the same time letting them keep their respective interpretations of where the border should be. It is concluded that only due to good neighbourly relations both parties have so far always managed to reach a satisfactory bilateral agreement, guaranteeing the interests of both parties and therefore rendering it a mutually costly and therefore undesirable exercise to pursue a border settlement. As long as the core of the predicament itself, the delineation of the Ems-Dollart estuary, has not been resolved however, bilateral solutions will always be a requirement should the lack of a border give rise to any more eventualities in the future.