With the nitrogen plans announced on Friday, the cabinet has not only angered agriculture enormously. The provinces that have to implement the plans are also not exactly charmed by the cabinet plans.
This is perhaps most evident in the province of Gelderland, where they have been working on their own plan for about three years now. A coalition of six political parties got around the table almost all farmers' organizations, plus all other involved players, to look together at how they can solve the environmental problems.
The Hague elephant
Gelderland was therefore one of the first provinces to come out with the message that the province see nothing in the Hague approach. That is not because she has the heaviest task. In the provincial house in Arnhem, The Hague is experienced as the proverbial elephant in the china shop.
CDA member of parliament and nitrogen spokesperson Daisy Vliegenthart tries to be friendly, but has to conclude that what nitrogen minister Christianne van der Wal (VVD) presented on Friday 'doesn't exactly help' to find a practical solution.
Plan needed for everyone
Colleague Dirk Vreugdenhil of the ChristenUnie, who is also party chairman, speaks more clearly. In his own words, he can't understand how a plan has been presented with such a one-sided focus on agriculture alone. "Present your plans to everyone at the same time, including industry, traffic and other sectors. This is a social and not a specific agricultural issue." Nor does he have a good word for 'scribing up some tables, of which it is impossible to understand how they arrived at them'.
More real measurements
Vreugdenhil also believes that Aerius is not a good and transparent system for determining air pollution. "I've worked with it and you can generate all kinds of outcomes with it," he says. He argues for more real measurements.
That is also what VVD spokesperson René Westra wants. "So much innovation has taken place in recent years. As a result, increasingly better sensors have become available, with which you no longer have to calculate, but can actually measure," he says. Together with fellow VVD directors, he also made that sound heard at the party congress of the liberals on Saturday.
Little faith in Aerius
Like Vreugdenhil and Vliegenthart, he does not agree with the cabinet plan, whereby farmers in the most polluted areas are not allowed to innovate. He wants to change that and he finds fellow board members of other parties in Gelderland behind him. Remarkably enough, they also do not show much confidence in working with Aerius and clearing companies by hexagon. According to Westra, Vliegenthart and Vreugdenhil, these kinds of solutions are too administrative, too inaccurate and also too little transparent and reliable.
Good consultation
Their preference is, as Commissioner Peter Drenth indicated earlier, to have Gelderland itself work towards a solution in close consultation. Vreugdenhil: "Those extra billions are perhaps counterproductive. The best results are achieved through poldering, good consultation with everyone and with a neat finish." According to them, The Hague threatens to frustrate such a solution.