In May 2021, when she turned livestock farming in the Netherlands upside down, Leonie Vestering had only been a Member of Parliament for the Party for the Animals for two months. With support from the left, D66, PVV and JA21, she arranged in an amendment to the law that animals should always be able to show their ‘natural behavior’. Think of chickens that like to take a dust bath, ducks in breeding that want to swim. You were no longer allowed to cut off the tails of piglets because they bite them off when they are close together, or to remove the horns of calves. Then as a farmer you just had to make the stable bigger.
The ‘Vestering Amendment’, as the change in the law has come to be called, has still not come into effect after all these years. According to Minister of Agriculture Piet Adema, it is neither feasible nor verifiable. He has now come up with another, much less far-reaching proposal and there will be a debate about it in the House of Representatives on Monday afternoon. Leonie Vestering is sitting in the public gallery. She is no longer a Member of Parliament. In September, when a conflict emerged between the PvdD board and party leader Esther Ouwehand, she resigned. Vestering cited the “internal struggle” as the reason for her departure.
Leonie Vestering was also there when there was a round table discussion about it last Thursday, with experts and interest groups. If Adema’s proposal receives a majority in the House of Representatives, Vestering’s will disappear. And that’s what she comes to see for two days. “They are demolishing your amendment, aren’t they?” says a CDA member on Thursday in the café of the House of Representatives. Sandra Beckerman of the SP and Laura Bromet of GroenLinks had gone to Vestering, in the stands, to hug her. VVD member Thom van Campen had waved, and on Monday he hugged her. Piet Adema comes to talk to her. Not Esther Ouwehand. She is also the only one who does not mention Vestering’s name once.
Leonie Vestering does not want to say anything about it after the debates. She only says that she “didn’t have an easy time” in the faction, and that the House of Representatives building “also brings back bad memories.” The Party for the Animals will present a new amendment on Monday: similar to its own, but much more detailed and it explicitly concerns animals that are kept “commercially”, not pets. If the ‘Ouwehand amendment’ is adopted, Vestering’s amendment will also disappear for the PvdD.
Leonie Vestering is now vice-chairman and campaign manager of Wakker Dier. She thinks that an exception for pets was not necessary. The explanation to her amendment already states that it applies to livestock farming. No judge, she says, can force you to buy a larger cage for your guinea pig or rabbit. “Although I would grant that to those guinea pigs and rabbits.” She smiles. “I am always in favor of more animal rights, not less.”