Edith Schippers: Sailing on a collision course?

Is Edith Schippers still the one at the helm?

On the third Tuesday of September the joyful event of Little Prince’s day occurs, which is full of flags, waving, funny hats, and more even waving. For politicians, however, this is a crucial event is it can make or break their reputation in the following days. This is because the fact that the proposal for the next year’s national budget which is presented that day. For Edith Schippers, minister of Health, this proposal caused a threat to her credibility in the following days.

The rise of costs and anger

Her ministry calculated that the basic insurance would rise with only 3.5%, while the first insurance companies were showing a rise of 10%. Statements of irritated people arosie on how they were lied to by the corrupt bunch in The Hague, but Edith Schippers chose to remain quiet at first, working on a strategy to maintain the damage. The insurance companies did react, rallying themselves against Edith Schippers while constructing the their frame: They were not the ones to blame for this miscalculation.

The response strategy

Based on the works of W. Anthony Coombs, this crisis can be categorized as an accidental challenge as stakeholders think that this miscalculation could had been prevented. Her tactic in the beginning was simple: Not to respond at all, which left the people even more irritated. Only after a week after Little Prince's day did Edith Schippers come out with a statement in which she said it was not the fault of her ministry. The calculations were done in collaboration with the Ministry of Finance, and the Central Bureau for Statistics had roughly the same estimates. Her primary crisis strategie was to diminish the crisis by using that justification and to blame the insurance companies as they could have used their reserves. Her secondary tactic was to remind everyone that in the two years before the estimation was too high, but then nobody complained.

The battle of the Frames

However, as frames align during a crisis as can be seen in the study of Tony van der Meerand Co. it can be argumented that the crisis is momentarily in the transition of the first to the second phase, in which all the parties try to push their frame in into the media and the public sphere. An alignment of frames is not achieved yet, as we are still in the middle of the crisis. The fact that Edith Schippers only just started with her providing information subsidies, a tool used for creating a frame, the battle of the frames is still going strong.

A conclusion?

Although the above provides evidence that the crisis is still going on, it can be said that Edith Schippers should had acted sooner with her comments, as she left the field open for the other players concerning this issue. However, when she entered the ring, she did throw some punches to the other parties. But will it be enough for a knock out, saving her credibility? We simply have to  wait for that.

Meanwhile, the bell is ringing for the next round…

Olaf Schoelink is a Master Student Corporate Communication at the University of Amsterdam. In his opinion he still has a long way to become the PR expert he wants to be, but that doesn't stop him from sharing his insights on PR subjects...