Background Nitrogen Mood
Agricultural table is becoming more and more nature table
At the Agricultural Table of LNV Minister Piet Adema, very little agriculture remains. A party like Farmers Defense Force did not participate in advance. In recent weeks, the Dutch Dairymen Board and Agractie (only from the main table) have resigned. This week the NMV came up with an ultimatum: finally a regulation for the PAS reporters and interim workers, otherwise no Agricultural Agreement. In our weekly section Nitrogen Mood, we give an impression of the nitrogen crisis in our own way.
This makes it a bit exciting for Adema, and also for LTO Netherlands, because the former is of little use to an Agricultural Cord with mainly non-agricultural parties and peripheral agricultural parties – however many there may be. The minister is aware of this, takes into account the fact that the NMV is resigning and is taking more time.
LTO between the natural greenery
LTO should also not feel comfortable in such a company, in which the major nature organizations, landscapes and related clubs determine the color. All the more so now that about 500 individual farmers have already taken the trouble to send a letter to the secretariat of the Agriculture Table to indicate that they do not feel represented.
LTO chairman Sjaak van der Tak also keeps hammering on a solution for the PAS reporters, but he does not seem to be pushing the matter to a head yet. Maybe because the wait has been going on for so long, about four years. At the time, the cabinet acknowledged that this group unjustly got into trouble, through no fault of their own, but the cabinet never got any further than promises to help here.
PAS change remains on hand
The PAS reporters are a burden for the government, but they have also been recognized as a means of exerting pressure. In essence, the government could help them out quite easily by buying out certain companies, just like Rijkswaterstaat does with road widening and by using their emission rights elsewhere. The amount of nitrogen required is relatively limited. However, this does not happen. PAS reporters are seen by a number of coalition parties and cabinet members as change, as many LTO administrators know. And a solution is all the more urgent now that banks will increasingly have to review their financing for these companies in the coming period, especially in the event of loan refinancing (the banks don't like to talk about this). It is remarkable that many prominent LTO and NMV directors (not Van der Tak or Bleker, who do not have a company) are PAS reporters themselves.
Nitrogen essay from the tunnel
The parties that continue to talk to the minister for the time being have received extra inspiration last week, in the form of a nitrogen essay by policy professors Erisman, Backes and De Vries (assisted by ecologists Van Dobben and Kooijman). Officially this is at the request of nitrogen minister Christianne van der Wal, but in fact at the request of an Agriculture table group. The central question for them was whether there are also alternatives to the Critical Deposition Value (KDW) for the protection of nature. The unsurprising answer from this group of people is no. They need 35 pages of text for that, but that is partly based on earlier work, including by Benno Strootman. The slogan 'tunnel vision' of Agractie foreman Bart Kemp therefore sounded quite familiar to many people.
Twilight and doubt phase
The political landscape has changed considerably since the provincial elections of 15 March, but as long as no new coalitions have been forged in the various provincial houses, there is still a kind of twilight zone between The Hague and the region. It is also the phase in which some parties want to push old policy as long as they can and others are hesitant to reconsider.
An example of the latter is CDA MP Derk Boswijk. In recent weeks he was suddenly quite critical of the nitrogen policy pursued, but now seems to no longer want to follow LTO foreman Van der Tak in the call for a nitrogen redesign. This will undoubtedly continue. At the end of next week, the cabinet would also like to make a decision about whether or not to expropriate as a last resort, administrators report.
Case law
In the meantime, it is also becoming clear that new case law has arisen in a number of court cases in recent weeks, which do not simplify the overview of the file. For example, in the case of the Stichting Stikstofclaim (SSC) the judge actually said against the state that the implementation of the nitrogen legislation lies with the provinces, to the detriment of the minister. In the case of MOB against the state about the widening of the A15, the judge made it clear that nitrogen emissions outside a radius of 25 kilometers have a different value than inside. This means that there are now actually three types of emission allowances: from 0 to 500 meters, from 500 to 25.000 meters and a category for beyond that. That is a complication for Aerius and perhaps good for some PAS detectors.
Klaas van der Horst
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