Exactly 24 hours after the nitrogen ruling in the case of Greenpeace against the State of the Netherlands, Minister Femke Wiersma (Agriculture, Fisheries, Food Security and Nature, BBB) was asked two tricky questions in the House of Representatives on Thursday morning. “If you change the law, will nature improve?” Laura Bromet of GroenLinks-PvdA asks her when submitting a fertilizer motion. And: “Is it necessary to improve nature in the Netherlands?”
They seem like simple questions. But Bromet actually asks what Minister Wiersma thinks of BBB leader Caroline van der Plas’ reaction to the ruling. Within five years, the nitrogen in half of the vulnerable nature reserves must be reduced to such an extent that this nature does not deteriorate, the court in The Hague has ordered the state. The limit value for nature deterioration is called the ‘critical deposition value’ (KDW), and that nitrogen target for 2030 is laid down in law.
Child labor
Then we just have to change the law, was Van der Plas’ response on Wednesday. This was once done to give women the right to vote and to abolish child labor, so it can also be done for nitrogen, the BBB leader said in the media. The goals are unattainable, so we must adjust them, according to the BBB.
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Wiersma herself does not answer Bromet on Thursday morning, she leaves that to BBB State Secretary Jean Rummenie, who is responsible for Nature. And Rummenie doesn’t actually answer. The court has said that nature “must not deteriorate in any case”, and the ruling requires “careful study” by the cabinet, he says. A special ministerial committee will look into nitrogen and will release its findings later.
“The question was whether you can improve nature by changing the law?” Bromet then interrupts the State Secretary, slightly irritated. “It seems to me that there is no other answer than ‘no’.”
Polarize
Also in the afternoon, the Greenpeace statement still resonates in another agricultural debate, which is actually about the feasibility of policy on the farm. Opposition party D66 criticizes the complacent attitude of NSC and VVD: coalition partner BBB wanted a different agricultural policy, so let BBB solve it, they said. In turn, D66 is accused of ‘polarizing’ towards farmers, because party leader Rob Jetten has again called for halving the livestock population.
It is the ingrained blame in the agricultural committee, which has been discussing for years without arriving at real solutions.
In exceptional circumstances, Forum for Democracy suddenly also shows its face in this committee the day after the ruling. FVD MP Lidewij de Vos argues that there would be no nitrogen problem at all if the nitrogen standards were simply removed from the law.
Does Minister Wiersma agree with this, asks De Vos. And contrary to the question from GroenLinks-PvdA, FVD manages to persuade the BBB minister to give an answer. It is striking that that answer is very different from the reaction of BBB leader Van der Plas to the statement.
That is not something we came up with in the Netherlands, these are international, scientifically based standards
“No,” says Minister Wiersma. Critical deposition values that determine the amount of nitrogen that nature reserves can tolerate are not subject to scientific discussion, she says. “That is not something we came up with in the Netherlands, these are international, scientifically based standards.”
Deterioration
The Dutch nitrogen standards, on which the court based its decision, arise from the European Bird and Habitats Directive, says Wiersma. “We are obliged to implement European directives at national level.” This European directive also contains a ban on deterioration of nature. “A nature objective analysis has established that we in the Netherlands have not complied with that ban, because deterioration has been noted.”
You would almost say: nature must improve and you cannot do that with a change in the law.
Andy Palmen, director of Greenpeace in the Netherlands, follows the debate from the stands and calls it “a bit surreal”. “Part of the House wants to reopen the nitrogen discussion. Or they say: change the law, then the problem will be solved. As if they do not realize that in the Netherlands we have a system with two Chambers, a government and the judiciary. And the judge actually reprimanded the state yesterday.”
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