The slow filling of ministerial positions after the appointment of a candidate prime minister is not really a sign of strength for the new coalition. At the same time, it may be a warning to all those people from agriculture who think that everything will be fine once the parties of their choice have won seats and administrators of their color have been appointed.
After hanging the doors, the real work begins: what happens behind those doors, which is less visible, but takes a lot of effort.
Leave civil servants alone
In the provinces it has already become apparent that simply filling administrative posts is not enough to change anything. BBB deputies are still struggling to get a handle on policy because they don't yet know many processes well and don't really know what their officials do. They also have no particular interest in making their political leaders wiser than they are. That is not strange. That's how it goes everywhere.
Nod of millions
If newly elected administrators want to fulfill their promises - in this case with regard to the countryside and agriculture - they require digging a shovel deeper and realizing where real management can be adjusted. In the IPO, for example, newly elected provincial politicians only discovered after more than a year why they were unable to get a grip on large parts of the nature policy in their area. That policy has been delegated to the deputy for many years, who often had little knowledge of it because he did not have to look at it. For example, Staatsbosbeheer, Natuurmonumenten and de Landschappen almost automatically receive enormous amounts of support every year thanks to a nod of the head by the IPO board. That is an interest group without direct democratic control.
Summary proceedings between friends
In the new cabinet that is still to be formed, the new ministers will also have to work hard if they really want to change anything. It will represent a break in the trend compared to what, for example, outgoing Minister Van der Wal did this week. In response to the ruling of the Hague court in the summary proceedings of Greenpeace against the state, she sent a letter to the House of Representatives to inform them. She won't be doing anything else for the time being. Maybe she can't do it anymore, but Van der Wal hasn't shown that she wants anything else in recent times. Like Greenpeace, she therefore did not have much need for the Nitrogen Claim Foundation (SSC) squeezed between them. It was not the intention to also take agricultural interests into account.
No substantive dispute
Greenpeace demanded that the government designate additional nature as quickly as possible to save nature. The judge ruled that the speed and scope of Greenpeace's wishes are not necessary, but that what Greenpeace wants is broadly reasonable. That is actually exactly what Van der Wal thinks. Minister and NGO agree on the goals, but not on the pace. For this reason, the minister did allow her officials to register a moderating protest in the summary proceedings, but she certainly did not show the need to challenge Greenpeace's claims. and friends (B-Ware, MOB) to challenge the content. There is no misunderstanding about this for the summary proceedings judge.
Nature is about to collapse, but not now
Van der Wal also believes that nature is about to collapse and expresses this, but only thinks that it should not be an issue yet. There is another important reason why Van der Wal largely agrees with Greenpeace. Her entire nature policy is based on the advice of many of the people who accompanied Greenpeace to the summary proceedings against the state.
Tough conflict of interest
They sit with the minister in the most important advisory body on nature and nitrogen policy, the Ecological Substantiation Task Group (TEO), or otherwise participate in discussions about the policy at a high level. In the field of nature and nitrogen, there is a lot of interrelationship of interests, which is not noticeable at first glance, but which forms a tough layer for any attempt to change things, such as when drawing up a workable nitrogen standard. In a sense it is comparable to what it used to be with LNV and the agricultural organizations, but the other way around.
Nitrogen scholasticism
Something can still be learned from Germany in the field of nitrogen. There they also have a critical deposition value (KDW). This is admittedly much more flexible than in the Netherlands, even after a relatively recent tightening. In addition to the KDW, however, in Germany they also have an arithmetic lower limit, a common sense insurance against the scholastic approach that they have in the Netherlands and Belgium. It prevents a lot of unnecessary misery. Here the lower limit is actually what a computer can still calculate, an approach that has many similarities with that of medieval scholastics. Of course they didn't have a computer, but they could argue endlessly about how many angels fit on the point of a needle.