Nitrogen increasingly ruined the mutual interaction in the coalition

It is hardly any news if the government coalition of PVV, VVD, NSC and BBB is deeply distributed and argues. But it seems certain: there are few themes where it rises so high among themselves, long and sometimes very personal, as with nitrogen and the farmers. Again this week. The plan From BBB Minister of Agriculture Femke Wiersma to help the Netherlands through nitrogen problems, lead to irritation and anger among members of the cabinet and MPs in the coalition.

VVD and NSC feel supported by the national lawyer, who hardly undermines Wiersma’s plans in her cabinet letter. And it is precisely that legal ‘assurance’ that it is now: only when the judge is convinced that the proposals reduce nitrogen emissions can the permit grant for construction projects, among other things. According to BBB, it is already extremely radical for farmers, and therefore for its own supporters, that there are measures for companies that are in the Peel and the Veluwe in a radius of 250 meters of pieces of nitrogen -sensitive nature. They must either go or work in a different, innovative way.

In a special ministerial committee on nitrogen, led by Prime Minister Dick Schoof, there were members of the cabinet, VVD and NSC, who had a much larger strip around much more vulnerable nature areas, and also measures that were much more compelling for farmers. For BBB, coercion, and therefore the possibility of expropriation, is non -speaking. And the BBB’ers know that they can stick to that ‘red line’ with confidence in the coalition and the cabinet.

The PVV does not want to alienate the voters from the countryside, is hardly any important topic and supports BBB. For the VVD, nitrogen is also not a subject that that party will drop the cabinet – the same applies to NSC. That party is in the polls on a loss of eighteen seats and is just a party leader Pieter Omtzigt lost.

Flowers and a single cow

And so nitrogen, especially for VVD and NSC on the one hand and BBB on the other, has become a conflict that is constantly there, and the mutual intercourse continues to ruin. At BBB, VVD people and NSC people have an unrealistic dream of agriculture as it was in the 1950s: with ‘flowers and a single cow’ in the meadow, while according to BBB, food production in the Netherlands and Europe is at risk. With VVD people and NSC people you can hear that BBB leader Caroline van der Plas ‘allows the entire country’ with her ‘foolish idea’ that the Netherlands will receive food shortages if there is less cattle.

After the May recess there will be a debate about the plans of Minister Wiersma and it is almost certain that VVD and NSC, as they do in debates more often, will work together with opposition parties, making Wiersma, as more often, difficult. What that will ultimately mean for the plans is not yet said. Just as well will play a role in what happens outside the politics in The Hague: what new legal requirements are there, how do lawsuits end that are being fed about nature and permits, how do farmers see the constant uncertainty?

‘Land Locked’

And: who wins in the image? Does BBB keep ‘the country locked’ due to measures that are not nearly far enough to be able to build houses again? Or is BBB the party that « takes responsibility » on a site that is difficult with its own supporters?

The recess had already started in the Lower House, the building was almost empty. Caroline van der Plas was there. « I want, » she says in her office, « being available to the media. That they don’t have to cross the entire country to film me somewhere on a bench in the park. For us this cabinet letter is one of the most important this year. »

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