An action group calling itself Occupy EUR is announcing follow-up actions after an occupation of the Sanders building on the campus of Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR) was ended by the police on Monday. The activists do not respond to an invitation from the Executive Board for a meeting.
Severing all ties with the fossil industry is Occupy EUR’s main demand. In addition, they want an end to the precariousness of academic staff and the debt burden of students. The accessibility of university buildings for disabled people must also be improved.
Occupy EU says it consists of students and staff of Erasmus University. Climate activists from outside would also have joined the occupation. Initially, the Executive Board was supposed to talk to the occupiers at the end of the afternoon, but that was ‘organisationally impossible’, according to an EUR spokesperson.
According to the university, information came through during the afternoon “from very reliable sources” about an “external threat”. On the advice of the police, it was decided to end the occupation around 6 p.m. The spokesman says he cannot say anything about the nature of the threat.
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The university has invited the activists for a meeting at another time, but Occupy EUR spokesperson ‘Charlie’ says he has no confidence in this. “We do not talk on terms of the university and do not want to participate in the nice press talks that they will undoubtedly send out into the world.”
This is not the first time that Erasmus University has been called to account for its connections with the fossil industry. In 2019, professor Henk Volberda was discredited when the National Body for Scientific Integrity ruled that he had acted ‘culpably carelessly’ when publishing a report on the business climate in the Netherlands by not being sufficiently transparent about the financing of the research. Shell was one of the lenders at the time.
In the same year, the business administration faculty – Rotterdam School of Management – was forced to cancel a contract with Shell in which the company was given the opportunity to influence the educational programme. This happened after research by Vatan Hüzeir, an EUR employee who is pursuing a PhD in sociology on the subject of climate activism. He participated in the occupation and gave an opening speech.
When asked about the current ties between the university and the fossil industry, Hüzeir points to the presence of companies in that sector at career fairs. Since the opening in 1994, the Shell logo can be seen in the lobby of the Forum room of the expo and conference center on campus. “Shell has had a permanent ad on campus for 28 years.”
In addition, Hüzeir suspects that the Erasmus Trust Fund, which has been built up from donations since 1913 and whose assets are managed by external parties, invests in fossil fuels. It is true that the fund itself says that it strives for a “as sustainably as possible portfolio”, with investments “in companies that respect the interests of ‘people, the environment and society’” (annual report 2021), but that is not a guarantee, according to Hüzeir. “Despite repeated requests, they have not disclosed what they are investing in, but I understand that there is a good chance that they are in fossil fuels.”
Occupy EUR believes that the university should treat the fossil industry in the same way as the tobacco industry or the arms industry, which have also been banned, says Hüzeir. “Whatever ties there may be, you should not enter into them for reasons of principle.”