Share purchase billions towards nitrogen reduction?

In the House of Representatives, there may be a majority that wants to partially convert the billions of dollars for the voluntary purchase of livestock farms into investment support for reducing the emission of business operations.

Roelof Bisschop, SGP Member of Parliament, submitted a motion to this effect last night during the debate on the agricultural budget in parliament. Agriculture Minister Carola Schouten spoke only briefly about the nitrogen problem, because a full debate will be devoted to this subject at the beginning of December. The SGP motion will therefore not be put to the vote until then, but has already been submitted to give a signal.

The text of the Bisschop motion does not specify how much of the approximately €1,5 billion, which the government intends to spend in total on the voluntary purchase of livestock farms, should be spent on investment support for low-emission livestock farming. LTO Nederland wants half of the many hundreds of millions budgeted annually to go to investment support. A total of €750 million.

Spending billions more effectively
Mark Harbers, member of parliament for the VVD, hinted this week that he would take on the criticism that the billions of dollars for voluntary buy-out could be spent much more effectively on emission reductions. "With the money for the purchase of 1 livestock farm you can make 25 companies low-emission", he said during an online VVD event of the Northeast Twente department. "Doing nothing is not an option. Now everything is at a standstill."

Both Harbers and CDA member Jaco Geurts made it clear that they did not agree with the professional ban for participants in the voluntary purchase scheme for peak tax payers that started this month. They also urged the minister to speed up solving the problems of PAS reporters. Since the ruling of the Council of State in 2019, they have been in uncertainty about the continuity of their business operations. Geurts: "A solution is not a matter of years, but of weeks".

In the parliamentary debate, Minister Schouten announced that he was still considering the professional ban. She also wants to discuss the problem of PAS reporters during the special nitrogen debate at the beginning of December. Since, in addition to the obvious support of the CDA and the VVD, the SGP can also count on the PVV and the Forum for Democracy, given their position in the nitrogen debate, the Bisschop motion has a good chance of being adopted. Together, these parties have 77 of the 150 seats in parliament. A narrow majority, which means that everything is still far from certain, especially in view of the problems at the FvD.

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