Now that America is showing itself an unreliable partner, the European Union is scratching. Not only in military terms, Europe has been counting on NATO protection from the United States for a long time, but the continent is also vulnerable in the energy supply. Those European concerns about these dependencies echo in The Hague.
In recent years, the Netherlands has exchanged one dependence (from Russian gas) for the other (American gas), it sounded in the Lower House. Suddenly energy security in the climate debate predominates. “This debate is about our safety,” GroenLinks-PvdA put it this week during an important debate about Dutch climate policy.
The Dutch energy requirement is largely based on gas and the Netherlands is largely dependent on other countries. In 2024, the Netherlands imported almost half of the annual gas consumption from the United States as a liquid gas (LNG). A small part is still from Russia and Norway. After closing the Groningen field, the Netherlands wins from small fields on land and in the North Sea, but that production has been running for years.
Will the Netherlands experience a repeat of the energy crisis from 2022, if America decides to use the export of liquid gas as a means of pressure? These times ask, more and more political parties, for “realism.” Whether it is about installing extra (strategic) gas stocks, as a large part of the room wants to be less dependent on geopolitical pressure, or the way in which the Netherlands is organizing its climate policy.
In addition, the VVD noticed this week: the coalition party, who with Sophie Hermans supplies the minister for climate and green growth, talked about climate plans from ‘Hague tubes’ that have been proven too often impracticable in recent years. According to the VVD, it is’ wry about megaton [CO2] to talk without giving an account of the geopolitical context ”. He forced “directions of direction” in climate policy.
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The VVD reasons as follows: We now import polluting LNG from America, which also makes us dependent. Despite green investments in its own energy, the Netherlands will need a lot of gas in the coming years. So the Netherlands has to drill more in the North Sea, a plea that the VVD and the CDA have been holding for years.
According to the VVD, the Netherlands does not have to tap into the luxury itself natural gas itself, while it imports more polluting fossil energy and makes us dependent. VVD MP Silvio Erkens said he was behind the climate transition, but that it would take longer than want green parties.
Shale gas drilling
In The Hague, more and more is assumed that in addition to sustainable energy, fossil energy will also be used for a long time. This week BBB and VVD had a test balloon on it. Whether the Netherlands could not investigate whether we can drill up shale gas – similar to what we import from America. It aroused the surprise of NSC: “This is going back to the primal time.”
Shale gas is controversial: it is accompanied by high methane emissions and to crack the underground rock to free up gas, a lot of energy is needed. There are also risks on groundwater pollution due to the release of chemicals. The last time that this was discussed in The Hague was under the Rutte II cabinet (2012-2017). Then the VVD was already ahead, PvdA against. Municipalities were also downright critical at the time.
Climate minister Hermans sees nothing in drilling shale gas. She said she had no reason to think that shale gas now has fewer ‘negative effects on the physical environment’ than previously research. Shale gas on land has since been, the minister said, “excluded.”
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Yet the search for gas is not over. Also at European level, it is diligently inspired by ways to become more energy-independent. That is why the European Commission recently suggested to conclude multi -year contracts with countries that export gas. While The Hague explicitly looks at Norway, which is still tapping new gas fields, the European Commission does not exclude the United States either.
Climate ambitions under pressure
Under the influence of geopolitical tensions and implementation problems, the Dutch climate ambitions for 2030 are increasingly under pressure. Priorities shift. In addition to the VVD, which this week was critical of the ‘statistical exercise’ of climate goals and argued for a longer-term vision, former coalition party CDA also openly doubts the climate goal laid down by the previous cabinet) 55 percent less in 20302 to expel then in 1990.
The implementation of climate plans has been disappointing, said CDA leader Henri Bontenbal, and this cabinet has deleted measures. “The climate policy just didn’t go fast enough. The sustainability of the industry was not fast enough. That is now a fact. ”
Bontenbal joined the plea of the VVD to make climate policy ‘practical’: the granting of permits for green projects accelerating and reducing energy costs. The Netherlands no longer needs to take a precursor position, but to align the climate policy with European neighboring countries.
CDA and VVD thus respond to an emergency cry from the industry, which complains about high energy prices and a Dutch CO2-levy. According to the CDA, the industry ‘broken’ if the Netherlands goes on the current route. Bontenbal suggests the National Co2-levy (intended for co2-to make emissions for industrial companies more expensive), even if that has a considerable adverse effect on achieving climate goals. A higher Dutch climate goal than Europe prescribes means, according to the CDA leader, especially that “our competitive position is deteriorating”.
‘Feasible and affordable’
In this discussion, BBB and PVV feel increasingly strengthened through rising energy costs, problems in the implementation of climate plans and international developments to interpret their criticism louder. They emphasized that climate policy should be ‘feasible and affordable’.
For example, in a recent study into investment in the power grid, the PVV saw that it appeared that 195 billion euros should be invested in the next fifteen years – in part for the electrification of the Netherlands, an extra argument to put down Dutch climate policy as too expensive and failed. Despite all investments in sustainability, said PVV MP Alexander Kops, the Netherlands has not become more independent of it.
Now that parties such as the VVD and the CDA are being doubted about the feasibility of climate goals, the political will to hold on to it seems to be increasingly evaporating. While the Netherlands wanted to be a forerunner in sustainability for a long time, if it is up to this Lower House – in the coming period, Europe will increasingly determine the greening pace.