Agricultural minister Wiersma gets a tap on fingers from Adviescollege for publicity because of ‘long -term and expensive procedure’

Minister Femke Wiersma (agriculture, BBB) has been reprimanded because she slows down the publication of emission data from farmers. She gets this tap on the fingers of the publicity and information management advisory college (ACOI). Wiersma only wants to make the data public when all sixty thousand farmers have received a letter about how to challenge publication.

According to the ACOI, that is a « long -term and expensive » procedure, which is « unnecessary » and arouses « a wrong impression »: farmers could get the idea that they can stop the publication of the data, while there is no legally there is no room for that. Wiersma must therefore refrain from this procedure, advises The ACOI in a Monday published advice. The minister must include this advice in further decisions.

Minister Wiersma is going to study the advice, says her spokesperson. She emphasizes that she wants to adhere to the law, but also that farmers must be informed ‘good and timely individually’ to « challenge » the disclosure.

Informing all farmers by letter and processing their complaints would, according to the spokesperson, last between six and eight months and cost between 5 and 14 million euros, depending on the number of complaints.

Stalled

The reason for the advice is a stuck WOO procedure-the Open Government Act-in which journalists of Follow the Money,,  » Omroep Gelderland and NRC ask to reveal the emission details of farmers. Based on this, the effectiveness of the nitrogen policy can be calculated, among other things. These requests were submitted in December 2022. The data was not yet made public. Also other extensive WOO requests from, among others, Wakker Dier and Environmental Movement Mob were stopped.

Minister Wiersma let her influence in These procedures apply earlier. Under her predecessor Piet Adema (ChristenUnie) it was decided to make the data public. That decided fought farmers’ interest groups Farmers Defense Force and the dairy farmers trade union at the court. Before the court was able to make a decision, the Netherlands Enterprise Agency, which manages the information, took the decision to reveal it. That happened in January after an intervention by Wiersma, who had been acting as a minister six months before.

Informing all farmers by letter and processing their complaints takes between six and eight months and costs between 5 and 14 million euros

Wiersma believes that the procedure in which farmers could challenge the publication of data is insufficiently careful. The decision has been announced in the Government Gazetteas usual in requests in which many parties are involved. Three thousand farmers protested against the decision. Wiersma thinks that farmers could have missed the decision and therefore wants to write to all farmers individually.

The minister acknowledges that the most likely nothing changes in the outcome: the data must be made public. In an international treaty, agreed emission data has always been revealed, among other things to properly inform local residents about possible health risks.

Time -consuming

Farmers individually writing down is therefore unnecessary, writes the ACOI. And in contradiction with « good governance and careful decision -making, » says the advisory college, because farmers can get the impression that the publication of the data can be prevented. The ACOI urges the minister ‘hopefully unnecessarily’ to carry out the ‘laws and regulations in careful and considerable manner’.

Farmers must be given the opportunity to challenge the publication of their data to the court, says the ACOI. It also advises the minister to actively publicly public the data himself every year, to prevent time -consuming procedures.

Farmers’ interest organization Menen that the publication of address data ensures more insecurity on the farmyard. The LTO has been arguing for a long time for adjusting the Woo. BBB also wants to adjust this law. On Wednesday, the House of Representatives will debate this at the request of party leader Caroline van der Plas.

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