The awe of democratically elected politicians for new elections is well known. It always plays a role and will continue to play a role in the minds of negotiating parties with the current formation. It also naturally takes place in Brussels. The closer the European elections, the more doubts arise about the continuation of unpopular policies, but European Agriculture Commissioner Janusz Wojciechowski takes the cake.
In an interview with publication Euractiv he even thanks European farmers for their protests against the Green Deal. He will not mean it as an encouragement for anonymous professional activists and Wojciechowski (left in the photo next to Piet Adema) is certainly not the architect of the Green Deal. Rather the contrary. Partly for this reason, he has sometimes received a personal reprimand from committee chairman Ursula von der Leyen. Moreover, it is not expected that the Pole will return to a new Commission, because he is one of the political opponents of Prime Minister Donald Tusk and has not always been politically adept. Yet it is special and striking that Wojciechowski breaks ranks in this way.
Not the goals, but the means
The outgoing agricultural commissioner does not immediately distance himself from the goals in the Green Deal, but he clearly believes that the wrong means have been used. Former Vice-President Frans Timmermans and his team wanted to use steam and boiling water to achieve a change in European agricultural policy, among other things, and used all kinds of mandatory instruments to achieve this. Pressure was also increased on member states to achieve more ambitious targets - which, for example, resulted in a phasing-out derogation for the Netherlands.
Rethinking is not enough
According to Timmermans and his team, it had an exemplary function and would therefore have to be provided with solid substantiation in order to move forward. Ultimately, it turned out not to be good enough for the Commission to continue as the Netherlands wanted. After the Dutch, the Irish and Danish derogation requests also ran into problems.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine and the resulting rediscovered vulnerabilities for the food supply, as well as the massive farmers' protests, required reconsideration and the Green Deal had to be adjusted. Wojciechowski believes that the approach should be different, with mainly incentives, no longer obligations.
Whether he is completely realistic is doubtful, because the Pole also wants a 50% increase in the budget for the CAP and a five times larger crisis reserve for European agriculture. That seems politically difficult to achieve, even if the European left loses heavily in the European Parliament elections in June.
Consultation and evaluation
Dutch agriculture is now highly dependent on what happens in Brussels. The main lines for agricultural policy are set out there. This year, in addition to a public consultation on manure processing (Renure), there will also be an evaluation of the 1991 Nitrate Directive. This guideline has been amended occasionally, but not since 2008.
Introduction WUR
They already have them at WUR, among others a cross datum. One of the interesting points from this: processed manure, even without Renure, should also have an advantage over artificial fertilizer, because it is less sensitive to leaching. There should also be more clarity about the measuring depth for nitrate.
Although some improvements have been made over the years. The Nitrate Directive is far too general in design to be applicable to all types of soils and climate zones in the EU.
Numbers in a row
In order to better understand and perhaps solve the fertilizer and nitrogen problems within the Netherlands itself, it would be very useful to first clearly identify the correct principles. For example, there is great uncertainty about the so-called nitrogen gap, or the gaseous losses to the air from the various livestock farming sectors.
Correction correct, manure crisis over
The Nitrogen Claim Foundation has asked research organization CLM to investigate this and map out what this means for dairy farming.
Conclusion is that if the correction for nitrogen losses for dairy farming were to be equalized with that for other livestock farming branches, the manure problem would be solved.
There are still more things to clarify. Agriculture is assessed for nitrate pollution of the water. Pollution of surface water in particular was said to be a problem in the last derogation negotiations. Unfortunately, it is very unclear what comes from domestic sources and what from abroad. According to the website, it comes via the major rivers emission registration an approximately five times greater nitrogen load enters the country than runs off from agriculture. And it is still unclear which domestic part comes from agriculture and which part comes from the city.
Urban nitrogen on agricultural plate
This is also a problem in neighboring countries. Farmers there also complain about nitrogen measurements in the city, which are charged to agriculture. It is a discussion in Bavaria, among others. And even nature reserves cause a lot of nitrogen leaching, so to speak CBS figures On. So it's time for clear data, based on concrete figures, without different standards and violations of standards everywhere: who is really responsible for what?