Johan Vollenbroek (73) is a farmer’s son from the Achterhoek who knows all about soup and pasta because of an employment contract with Honig, a former athlete and the chairman of the environmental consultancy MOB. In the latter position, he is the louse in the pelt of the Dutch government. He put the nitrogen problem on the map in 2019 when the Council of State dismissed the Nitrogen Approach Program on his initiative. Since then, the government has been constantly coming up with new solutions to the nitrogen problem, after which Vollenbroek starts a lawsuit (which he invariably wins), after which the government has to come up with a new plan. That pattern was repeated this week when Vollenbroek and MOB were proved right by the Council of State, the Porthos project – storing CO2 in empty gas fields – was (temporarily) off the table and en passant the ‘construction exemption’ was rejected.
You could call Vollenbroek a troublemaker, but he is more of a chemist with a legal interest who checks the government’s plans against the laws made by the government itself. When he starts a lawsuit, he is always very polite: he warns the government in advance that it will get wet if it doesn’t change the policy.
Then the government does indeed get wet and you have the puppets dancing. Because the Council of State rejected the ‘construction exemption’ – no permit is required during the construction phase of projects – ‘the whole of the Netherlands will be locked’, all the newspapers said threateningly. That is not so bad, but you can already conclude that Hugo de Jonge’s ambitious plan to build 900,000 homes by 2030 can be thrown into the trash.
The fact that the housing shortage will not be solved in the short term is not the fault of Vollenbroek, but of a cabinet that does not comply with its own legislation: a 55 percent reduction in nitrogen emissions by 2030. Instead of making clear plans to achieve that goal, To achieve this, the government is constantly looking for what everyone obscurely calls ‘goat paths’, but which are in fact cowardly avoidance behaviour, intended to leave everything as it was.
Especially for the farmers.
Because for this professional group, the cabinet squeezes itself in every corner, it gives way and it has an accident, just to avoid quarrels. That is why it has agreed to appoint ministers with a rubber backbone.
Henk Staghouwer (CU) first came to The Hague, but the problems soon became too much for him. Staghouwer was replaced by Piet Adema (also CU), who declared to a group of farmers in Drachten last Tuesday that he did not intend to ‘dogmatically’ stick to the target date laid down in the law for the desired nitrogen reduction.
‘Dogmatic’ is a word that was previously used in the same context by CDA captain Wopke Hoekstra. It’s meant to portray yourself as a non-dogmatic thinker, but in reality it means you’re willing to do anything to please the peasant community. According to Adema, his statements were completely in line with Johan Remkes, whose latest report has gradually gained more weight than the law.
“If only one tractor runs onto the highway, the cabinet will be shivering again,” Vollenbroek said on Thursday. NRC. He was right, the motorized peasant army gives them nightmares in The Hague. Every time the slackers in the cabinet smear the farmers with syrup, the position of the courageous Minister of Nitrogen Christianne van der Wal becomes more difficult.
Vollenbroek: ‘Ultimately, the ministers have insufficient backbone, courage and vision to adapt livestock farming.’
Cowardice reigns; courage, it lacks.