The cabinet decided this on Friday, at the last Council of Ministers before the summer recess. Nitrogen Minister Van der Wal and Agriculture Minister Staghouwer give the green light to 45 proposals from provinces to accelerate the reduction of nitrogen emissions and improve nature. This can be done by buying out farmers, but also with subsidies for innovation.
The amount of 504 million euros comes from a fund of more than 24 billion euros yet to be established for the nitrogen approach. That amount is now being spent earlier than previously planned.
In addition, 250 million euros will go to provincial plans to urgently grant a permit to so-called PAS reporters. That was a wish of coalition party CDA. PAS reporters are farmers who received a nature permit between 2015 and 2019, but who later turned out to be not entitled to it. It has been agreed in the coalition agreement that these farmers will be legalized: by 2025 at the latest.
To plan
In this way, the cabinet is partly responding to complaints from provincial administrators, who believe that The Hague provides too little clarity about the nitrogen approach. On Friday, the province of Noord-Brabant asked for money to get started. By July 2023 at the latest, all provinces must have a plan ready that states how they have reduced half of the nitrogen emissions in their province by 2030.
In the meantime, there is still a lot of unrest about the lack of perspective for farmers in all plans. Minister Staghouwer (Agriculture) has promised to come up with a new proposal after the summer. For a month, farmers across the country have been protesting government plans to reduce livestock by about 30 percent.