In sight of the port, negotiations for a new provincial government have failed. On Thursday evening, BBB pulled the plug on the talks after it became clear that they would not agree. According to VVD, GroenLinks and PvdA, the BBB came back on a number of points at the last minute.
The deadline for barn adjustments in particular proved to be a stumbling point. According to BBB party chairman John Frenken, the supporters have decided not to agree with what is stated in the draft agreement.
Martijn van Gruijthuijsen (VVD): “We still have to deal with the blow.” The party will first calmly think about what the failure of the formation means. “We’ll talk about that next week.”
“I feel incredibly empty,” says John Frenken of the BBB. “We have worked hard in recent months. It broke down on the stables deadline. There was not enough clarity from national politics. It is not for nothing that it is a breaking point for us. We have often discussed it and saw good developments. We started it, but we didn’t finish it.”
According to the PvdA and GroenLinks, the negotiators were indeed out. “If we didn’t think so, we wouldn’t have let the formateur announce that there would be an administrative agreement next Monday,” says Ward Deckers of the PvdA.
“Now the bullet had to go through the church.”
This indicates that the intended coalition parties wanted to move away from July 1, 2024 as the deadline for the barn adjustments. Then all dairy farmers should have a low-emission barn floor. That should drastically reduce nitrogen emissions. At the same time, the VVD, PvdA and GroenLinks would not have wanted to move the deadline to 2028. That is the national line.
The BBB therefore initially agreed to this, it seems. But at the last minute the party was blown back by the rank and file. That became clear once again this Friday when the CDA submitted a motion to the same effect (deadline to 2028), which was not supported by VVD, GroenLinks and PvdA.
Filing the motion was a strategic move. “I think that put pressure on the BBB,” says Ronnie Buiks of the CDA. “They have had enough time to talk about it with each other. Now the bullet had to be through the church.” BBB voted in favor of the motion on Friday morning, but by then the plug had already been pulled from the negotiations.
After all, moving the stables deadline of July next year was a breaking point for the BBB. The CDA thought it would be useful to respond to this. It would be very strange if the BBB voted against the motion to move to 2028.
“We are very sorry that we did not come out.”
The VVD voted against the CDA motion. This does not make any negotiations between these parties any easier. “We don’t necessarily have to,” says CDA member Buiks. “But if we can make a constructive contribution to a coalition, we will. But in our own way and not like the past four years.”
At GroenLinks they are disappointed about the breakdown of the negotiations. “We are very sorry that we did not come out,” says Jade van der Linden. “We thought we were out. Our group supported the agreement, which turned out not to be the case with all parties.”
Willem Rutjens of JA21 is not surprised. “We knew it would be difficult between BBB and GroenLinks. After three months, they found out themselves. Not expropriating farmers and shifting the barn deadline were clear points for the BBB. So this is a predictable outcome,” says Rutjens. He would, however, like to see the draft administrative agreement. “Then we can see where exactly it went wrong.”
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