The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies (HCSS) has published a snapshot analysis concluding that the Netherlands occupies a position of considerable leverage in the global semiconductor supply chain — but not one of independence. The report, titled "Leverage without independence: The Netherlands and the geopolitics of semiconductor chokepoints," frames the Dutch position as a central question for European technology policy.

Why does the Netherlands matter to chip supply chains?

The answer centres on one company: ASML, the Veldhoven-based lithography equipment maker. No advanced chip fab anywhere in the world can produce leading-edge semiconductors without ASML's machines, and ASML itself has no meaningful competitor in its core segment of the market. That asymmetry gives a small European country an outsized role in a supply chain that Washington, Beijing and Brussels all treat as strategically decisive.

HCSS places this Dutch position within the broader framework of "chokepoints" — narrow stages of the semiconductor value chain where a single country or company can restrict the flow of technology to rivals. The report argues that the Netherlands commands one of these chokepoints while depending on others, including access to foreign markets, foreign suppliers and the security guarantees of allies.

What does "leverage without independence" mean in practice?

The report's core thesis, as its title signals, is that leverage and independence are not the same thing. The Netherlands can restrict or enable advanced chipmaking capacity elsewhere in the world through export controls on ASML equipment. Yet it cannot act on that leverage unilaterally, because:

• Export licensing for ASML's most advanced systems requires alignment with United States policy, which has tightened restrictions on shipments to China in recent years.
• ASML's supply chain and customer base span multiple jurisdictions, limiting what any single government can dictate.
• The Dutch economy depends on open trade with the very powers contesting semiconductor supremacy, including China.

This creates what HCSS characterises as a geopolitically uncomfortable middle position: powerful enough to be courted and pressured by Washington and Brussels, but not sovereign enough to set its own course.

How does this fit the wider chip war?

The report situates the Dutch case within the escalating technology rivalry between the United States and China. Successive rounds of export controls have drawn the Netherlands into restrictions it did not initiate, and ASML's China business has become a recurring point of friction between commercial interests in Veldhoven and security priorities in Washington and, increasingly, Brussels.

For European policymakers, HCSS's framing carries a clear implication: a chokepoint held by one member state is not the same as European strategic autonomy in semiconductors. The EU's ambitions to expand domestic chip manufacturing still depend on equipment, materials and know-how concentrated in a handful of companies and countries — of which the Netherlands is only one, if the most consequential.

What comes next?

The snapshot suggests that the Netherlands will keep facing pressure to align its export policy with allied positions while defending the commercial interests of its flagship equipment maker. How The Hague manages that tension — and whether European coordination can convert national leverage into collective resilience — will shape the continent's standing in the semiconductor contest that follows.