Background Nitrogen mood
Promoting interests is something you do together and with commitment
Several agricultural organizations could have used the past few months for a summer course in raising awareness for their own causes. Greenpeace, for example, or XR. Although... perhaps not the latter, as they regularly overstep the boundaries of the law. Fortunately (or not), the authorities in the Netherlands are quite lenient towards them, just as they are towards certain other demonstrations that are also legally unacceptable.
Regardless. Greenpeace, along with the Bird Protection Society, Soorten NL, and a number of other nature and environmental groups, filed a detailed and joint objection this week (complete with a major press release) to the emergency bill proposed by outgoing Minister of Agriculture Femke Wiersma to remove the critical deposition value (KDW) from the Environment Act. It would violate European obligations, legal rulings, and demonstrate maladministration, even be undemocratic.
Everything from the cupboard
The clubs are running out of superlatives to make their point. They're pulling out all the stops. Naturally, they want the minister to withdraw the proposal. Agraction finds It's precisely the minister who needs to persevere, but more decisively: with measures that genuinely help both nature and businesses. The state of nature should be the deciding factor, not a single figure from poorly substantiated model calculations, but one with high symbolic value. She also wants a distinction between NH3 and NOx emissions, but aviation and logistics interests will likely be unmoved by that.
Reach and commitment
Now, Greenpeace and its associates have a much wider reach than Agractie, but the latter at least provides a clear, substantiated response. Meanwhile, where are the other agricultural organizations? Or perhaps they've submitted a standpoint that hasn't been made public? Perhaps something will come of it, but it's striking, and actually surprising, how little public advocacy there is for the interests of agriculture and horticulture, even by their own organizations. It gives the impression that a large proportion of administrators have long since thrown in the towel.
Dairy cattle chaos
And admittedly, advocacy in the dairy farming sector, in particular, is a complete mess, with too many different voices and sub-interests. The established organizations seem to be sitting back and relying on their own channels with the minister—whether or not through shady lobbyists—while smaller organizations like Agractie and Stikstofclaim are highly motivated but carry less weight. The sector as a whole is apparently letting this happen.
Official resistance
The green organizations' crusade against the elimination of the KDW will continue in the coming months. The minister, supported by the cabinet, wants to abolish this calculation factor, but he is also facing considerable administrative resistance. This is similar to the resistance to adjusting the lower limit for nitrogen. Before the summer, there was a commitment through the provinces to arrange this through their channels. That's where the real authority lies. There was a political desire to arrange this, but due to a combination of hesitant administrators and administrative resistance (lack of motivation, negative recommendations) from the central working organizations of the provinces, the matter is not moving forward, according to the regions.
No objection previously
Previously, these circles had worked enthusiastically and diligently to implement a stringent nature policy, based on KDWs and other relevant indicators, not all of which were approved by Parliament. Against this backdrop, Greenpeace's cries for help against Minister Wiersma's proposals ring a bit hollow. In fact, her bill doesn't conflict with the legal obligation to prevent environmental degradation at all. She simply wants to meet it in a different way. The accusation that the minister is sidelining the Senate and House of Representatives seems laughable, as the minister can't do anything without these bodies.
Incidentally, the Schoof Commission did meet this week and intends to do so again next week, but little information has been released about this yet.
One emission is not the same as another
Meanwhile, this week is also a so-called Non-paper acceleration of the energy transition with a temporary, limited energy transitionIt's also a proposal to set aside the existing arithmetic lower limit, either temporarily or permanently. There's a good chance that this plan (not yet a concrete bill) will cause less controversy. After all, this isn't about agricultural emissions, but about apparently more palatable combustion emissions.
Klaas van der Horst
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