BBB does not interfere with nitrogen targets in new provincial government of Groningen: ‘We abide by the law’

,,We abide by the law”, assured BBB leader Gouke Moes and future agricultural deputy Henk Emmens of that party on Thursday at the presentation of the new board of the Provincial Executive. The election winner BBB will be at the helm together with the PvdA, Groninger Belang and the ChristenUnie for the next four years.

But the four coalition partners do not run the province alone, they emphasized on Thursday at the presentation of their joint administrative agreement Veur Mekoar . According to Moes, this title underlines the desire to develop policy together with the Provincial Council and the people of Groningen. The coalition is also calling on the opposition to participate in this. She wants to evaluate whether that will work with the States halfway through the journey.

An outline administrative agreement should also give room for opposition in Parliament

,,We have really tried to fill in as few concrete details as possible”, says Moes about the agreement. In this, the four partners mainly limit themselves to the main points of the policy. In many respects they are continuing on the path they have taken, in others the accents are fundamentally different with the arrival of newcomers BBB and Groninger Belang.

For example, there will no longer be room in Groningen for wind turbines more than 60 meters high, an important point for Groninger Belang. Smaller turbines up to 20 meters high are welcome. In general, the new coalition wants to take a closer look at the distribution of the scarce space in Groningen.

Mega data centers are taboo, new streamlines must go underground: ‘Landscape first’

,,We put the landscape first,” says Groninger Belang captain Bram Schmaal, deputy-designate for Spatial Planning and Finance. The brakes are applied to the ‘densification’ of the rural area: mega data centers (or ‘hyperscales’) are taboo, only smaller ones still have room in the planned expansion of the Eemshaven with the Oostpolder. New power transmission lines are only allowed underground.

The new coalition is investing extra in new care and village facilities in places that are deprived of general practitioner care and welfare organizations. Responsible PvdA deputy Tjeerd van Dekken sees a first example in the efforts of residents of Finsterwolde to keep the local swimming pool Hardenberg as a sports and care center.

Vehicle tax frozen, at least 30 percent of new houses are for social rent

It has also been agreed that the provincial surcharge on the carriage tax, already among the highest in the country, will be frozen and will no longer grow in line with inflation. The basic job that has proven successful in the city to give long-term unemployed people prospects for the future will be rolled out to the rest of the province. For the thousands of houses that will be added to Groningen in the near future, the standard is now that at least 30 percent of them will be in the social rented sector.

Also new is the appointment of Susan Top as deputy for the earthquake file. With the arrival of the former secretary of the Groninger Gasberaad, the province will have a non-party director for the first time. Top has been approached by BBB, but not a member of that party. In the current college, the file was divided between several deputies and King’s Commissioner René Paas.

Susan Top (formerly Gasberaad) ‘is eager’ to be a non-partisan gas deputy

,,I can’t wait to get started”, says Top. “There is a very good opportunity to make something of it together with the States and municipalities. It is of course a terribly unruly dossier, but especially after the parliamentary inquiry in Groningen I feel that more is possible.”

The new gas deputy has no doubts about the good cooperation with cdK Paas, who recently led the way in the battle to redeem the ‘debt of honor’ to the Groningen population in The Hague. “I hope that we are all pulling at the same end of the rope, including the Commissioner. I’m really not going to do this on my own, but I do want to try to bring more overview and coherence.”

With the arrival of Emmens, sitting agricultural deputy Johan Hamster is moving on behalf of the ChristenUnie to (among other things) transport and mobility, energy transition and poverty reduction. The new coalition wants to put a lot of effort into the latter area in particular.

“It is crazy that many Groningen residents cannot pay their energy bills,” says Hamster. He also wants to show residents what they can do with new sustainable energy initiatives so that there is more support for, for example, the production of hydrogen and other forms of wind and solar energy storage.