The House of Representatives has voted down a bill to split the newly merged municipalities of Haren and Groningen with a large majority. Only FVD, PVV, Van Haga and BBB voted for it. The BBB vote in favor in particular offers the Haren Citizens’ Committee a glimmer of hope.
During the treatment of the initiative proposal by Pepijn van Houwelingen of FVD in February and March, it became clear that there is no majority in parliament at all for the plan to reverse the municipal merger from 2019. In Haren in particular, there was resistance to the merger with Groningen in the years before 2019, and in 2014 three-quarters of the population still spoke out against it. But under pressure from the province, it went ahead anyway.
There are more parties in the House of Representatives that are critical of municipal mergers. The SP and SGP, for example, but they thought Van Houwelingen’s initiative proposal was poorly developed. The Council of State also advised negatively because the merger has only just been implemented and it is quite complicated to reverse everything in practice.
BBB calls Haren a special case
Nevertheless, Forum continued the discussion and the proposal was finally voted down on Tuesday. A motion to at least have an investigation carried out by the Northern Court of Audit also did not come close to a majority.
What is remarkable is the attitude of the new power factor in The Hague, BBB. When asked, BBB’s second man, Henk Vermeer, stated that his party was against this municipal merger because there was no support for it among the citizens of Haren. But Vermeer cannot say whether the BoerBurgerBeweging will now aim for the reversal of more controversial municipal mergers of recent times. Haren is a special case.
Gustaav Biezeveld of the Civic Committee Haren had counted on the bill being voted down. But he still derives a glimmer of hope from BBB’s lineup. “In my opinion, BBB’s electoral victory also has to do with the administrative culture and the way in which parties deal with citizens’ interests,” says Biezeveld. BBB is now the largest party in the province of Groningen and could therefore perhaps propose an investigation by the audit office into the merger, Biezeveld hopes.