New started, a new beginning, is the title above the plan in which the cabinet formulates its answer to the tough conclusions of the parliamentary committee of inquiry about gas extraction in Groningen. Such a new beginning is what the cabinet wishes for the people of Groningen who suffer from gas extraction – and for themselves.
Because the cabinet has a lot to make up for with the people of Groningen. For them, the conclusions of the committee of inquiry, which appeared in February, will have confirmed what they already knew. They already knew that their interests were being “systematically ignored,” as the commission wrote. That the handling of damage from gas extraction “is a combination of ignorance, disruption and even unwillingness”. Nor was it news that the cabinet was building “a smoke screen” to prevent gas extraction from being reduced after the severe earthquake in Huizinge in 2012.
What the Groningen administrators and residents really wanted to hear, as was heard immediately after the publication of the report, were heartfelt apologies and a serious attempt to tackle the problems. Not only to repair damage and prevent new damage, but also to clear the backlog of this and subsequent generations.
The mission of the cabinet, outlined in the fifty-point plan that Prime Minister Mark Rutte (VVD) and State Secretary for Mining Hans Vijlbrief (D66) presented in Garmerwolde on Tuesday, is therefore twofold. First of all, there must be a turnaround in the approach to damage. On top of that, there is a need for perspective, money and measures to ensure that the province is soon better off.
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The government wants to allocate 22 billion euros for all these plans in the coming decades, although part of that amount has already been pledged. The majority goes to repairing and strengthening homes. An amount of approximately 9 billion should help with the future prospects of Groningen residents, in the form of sustainability, welfare and social recovery and a package of economic support resources.
Milder, more humane, easier
Many Groningen residents think the plans for the future of their province are nice and nice. But first their houses must be repaired. Claims handling must be ‘milder, more humane and easier’, stated the committee of inquiry at the beginning of this year.
The government expects to spend almost 13 billion euros on strengthening and repairing houses over the next five years. That is not a ceiling, Rutte said afterwards. “If more is needed, more will come.”
The cabinet also promises to simplify claims handling: “No more procession of experts and piles of reports, less reason for discussions and legal disputes.”
For example, all damage claims from residents with damaged houses in the earthquake area are reimbursed up to 40,000 euros without an inspection being required. Damage experts no longer have to establish the connection between the damage and gas extraction first. The area in which this is no longer necessary is expanding.
In the case of more extensive damage, the repair of which costs more than 40,000 euros, it still has to be determined whether the damage is caused by gas extraction. That is precisely where the problem lies, according to Members of Parliament Henk Nijboer (PvdA) and Sandra Beckerman (SP). “The biggest problems are with the biggest damage,” says Nijboer. “It is precisely those people who now remain in a bureaucratic quagmire,” says Beckerman.
Residents whose house is more seriously damaged and needs to be reinforced will receive a fixed nuisance compensation of 1,200 euros and compensation for immaterial damage of 5,000 euros. Resident counselors from the National Coordinator Groningen (NCG), responsible for strengthening houses, receive a budget of 50,000 euros per case to “help residents and make decisions”.
Sustainability operation
Restoring and strengthening houses is an important step, but no more than restoring the old situation. The cabinet also wants to provide long-term support to the people of Groningen because of the misery they experienced as a result of the earthquakes: fear, unrest, stress and burnouts due to the gigantic government bureaucracy in which they were stuck for years if they wanted to arrange their recovery. The government is making approximately 9 billion euros available for this, largely spread over the next thirty years.
One of the pillars is a major sustainability operation. In Groningen and North Drenthe in particular, an above-average number of households suffer from energy poverty: there are many old, large homes that consume energy and are expensive to heat. The cabinet wants to insulate these homes more quickly, in a larger area.
A second pillar consists of measures to improve the mental and social well-being of residents. The social and economic disadvantages in the earthquake area are considerable, the cabinet also acknowledges. Municipalities therefore receive extra money, for example, to improve the quality of life, education and poverty reduction.
Finally, there is a row of plans under the heading ‘economic prospects’. The N33 will be widened, the railway line between Veendam and Stadskanaal will be put back into use and the cabinet wants to invest extra in innovation in the province. Co-financing by the region is a condition for this.
Investments from this fund can be used to attract medical specialists, among other things, so that the province can lead the way in branches of health technology. As a result, Groningen can also develop into ‘the hydrogen province’ and a high-tech ‘agricultural region of the 21st century’. These are far-reaching plans, although there is significantly less money available than Groningen asked for.
Groningen can develop into ‘the hydrogen province’
‘Too skinny’
That is why there was immediate criticism on Tuesday. According to Groningen administrators, the available amount is far too low. “The goals are good, but the measures and resources are too meager,” says King’s Commissioner René Paas. It hurts that the cabinet has the same goals as the region, but thinks it can achieve them with a third of the money that the region has requested.
Paas himself previously suggested an amount of 30 billion for long-term compensation and an unlimited amount for damage repair. Groningen has seen little of the 363 billion euros that the Dutch state has earned from gas extraction. The region therefore calls on the House of Representatives, which has to debate the report of the committee of inquiry with the cabinet in May, to “do justice to the outcome of the survey.”