CBDC has a sugar daddy in Dutch politics - meet the billionaire bankrolling labour
That's why parliament put a cap on bankrolling campaigns
Software billionaire Steven Schuurman, who donated a million euros to D66 bankrolling this party’s big win in the previous parliamentary elections, is this time also cashing in on the campaign of Frans Timmermans' left-wing bloc. Both the PvdA and GroenLinks received money from his ngo, called The Dreamery Foundation.
Schuurman is the rising star in Dutch philantropy, advocating digital education and a green future provided by nuclear energy, amongst others. He is one of the founding sponsors of RePlanet, the Astroturf antidote to Extinction Rebellion, to promote nuclear.
Elastic, the software company that made him billionaire, is involved in large data analysis projects, and an advocate for a European CBDC.
Like in the previous general election race, D66 is also getting money, but much less than in 2021. Back then, Sigrid Kaag was bankrolled by Schuurman with 1 million euros (the highest donation ever by one person to a political party in the Netherlands). A week and a half ago, a tenth of that amount (100,000 euros) was deposited by the IT entrepreneur for the campaign of Kaag's successor Rob Jetten. This is the new maximum for individual donations.
New transparency
With this new rule, also a first this year, is that there is public insight into big donations. Any funding by a single sponsor that’s bigger than 10,000 euros must be reported immediately. In this mini news donut (tm) (C) you can see that liberal VVD is receiving the most money out of the big spenders. However, total funding from large donors is falling behind on the general election campaign two years ago. Back then, several parties spent €3 mln each. The sum of large donations for all parties in 2023 per Nov. 1 is only €4.3 mln euro’s. However, parties can also use funding from membership fees and small (<€1000) donations, contributions that not have to be made public.
Green sugar daddy
Schuurman donated €140.000 in total, against €1,4 mln in 2021. Like then, he sent his money via the Dreamery Foundation, which he founded as a philanthropy. The IT entrepreneur set that up after he became a billionaire with the IPO of search engine platform Elastic. Using open source software, this company built a platform that makes it easy to link and search large amounts of data. Services include CBDC and cybersecurity solutions, as well as tailor made search engines for businesses. .
The Dreamery Foundation earlier this year caught media attention because it bankrolled the Re:Planet astroturf youth movement, that fights environmental ngo’s that want to ban nuclear energy in the ‘green’ energy transition.
Elastic’s founder might not be only in for the good: the company is also offering services for the implementation of central bank digital currencies. In interviews however, Schuurman previously stated that he does not intend to buy influence.