Schouten: 'OM goes beyond its scope'

Schouten indicated that she does not need the Public Prosecution Service (OM) when making policy; she is involved in the clean-up of the pig herd and introduced a strengthened enforcement strategy. The meddling from the Public Prosecution Service is unfortunate timing. Several MPs therefore believe that the officer has overstepped his bounds.

However, Laura Bromet (GroenLinks) wonders how many alarm bells have to ring before the minister realizes that there are too many livestock. She also thinks it is time for the minister to talk to the sector about the restructuring of the livestock herd. "The Public Prosecution Service does not believe that the announced measures will work. There is only 1 solution: fewer animals."

Too little time
"The Public Prosecution Service states that the strengthened enforcement strategy, which I sent to Parliament about 1,5 months ago, is not yet working," says Schouten. She then did not waste too many words, mainly indicating that she usually needs more time to implement policy.

Claude van Dongen (LTO Netherlands) is also surprised that the Public Prosecution Service responds in this way, while so many measures have been implemented in the past period and they are working hard to implement these measures. This is how the website recently went keurmest.nl starts, after which participants declare that they are working on a fair manure chain. This will be converted to a certified system, but that will take time and Van Dongen expects that this will only start after the summer of 2019.

"A cultural change is needed. As a farmer you also have to think about what the buyer does with your product," says Van Dongen. He agrees that fraud must be eradicated, but fewer livestock is not the only solution. He also indicates that caught fraudsters can easily continue and are not always punished. "This completes the circle and in fact puts the ball back in the Public Prosecution Service's court," he concludes.

Bizarre
Helma Lodders (VVD), Roelof Bisschop (SGP) and Jaco Geurts (CDA) all indicated that they were not happy with the involvement of the Public Prosecution Service. "The statements of the Public Prosecution Service are bizarre. Who makes the policy here: the Public Prosecution Service or the minister?" Geurts wonders. However, William Moorlag (PvdA) did stand up for the Public Prosecution Service. "The Public Prosecution Service is desperate and therefore the problem must be tackled at the source."

Moorlag also believes that the livestock population in the Netherlands should be reduced, just like GroenLinks and the Party for the Animals (PvdD). Esther Ouwehand (PvdD) notes that the phosphate ceiling for pig farming (at the insistence of the sector) after the remediation won't go down. However, Minister Schouten says that this is not yet certain.

Warm remediation
Schouten has repeated several times that work is currently being done to reorganize the pig sector. "And especially in areas where livestock intensity is high and where there are problems with manure." Tjeerd de Groot (D66) wonders how many pigs are being remediated, but Schouten could not give an exact answer: "That depends on the price of the rights at that time."

The closing question, like the opening question, was for Bromet: "Isn't there just too little space for manure in the Netherlands?" For Schouten, this question is a perfect bridge to her agricultural vision. "You know that we want to replace artificial fertilizer with animal manure," Schouten replies.

Derogation
Schouten's enhanced enforcement strategy (in which the Public Prosecution Service is also involved) has now been adopted by the European Commission and the derogation process can be initiated. The officer's comments come at a particularly inconvenient time. It was clear from Schouten's answers that she too had to read the comments in the newspaper.