A lot has happened with regard to gas extraction in Groningen, and sometimes well done, but it has not been enough, Prime Minister Mark Rutte concluded on Wednesday. The mistrust of Rutte, also in the House of Representatives, turned out to be immense, but the prime minister did not want to budge.
This can be concluded from the two-day debate between the House of Representatives and Prime Minister Mark Rutte (VVD) and State Secretary Hans Vijlbrief (D66, mining). The Prime Minister himself also concluded that things should have been better. Rutte said, after some insistence, that he felt “anger” and “shame” about how the cabinet, under his leadership, had handled the situation after the earthquake near Huizinge.
At the end of the debate, Rutte called it “a tough debate” on Wednesday evening. According to the prime minister, it was an important moment, in which he indicated that “what has gone wrong in the past twelve years has not been solved with a stroke of the pen”.
Motion of distrust
The entire opposition attacked the prime minister for two days. This eventually led to a motion of no confidence that was voted down on Wednesday evening because the four coalition parties VVD, D66, ChristenUnie and CDA closed ranks and protected the prime minister. They found the years of misery experienced by the earthquake victims from Groningen, the bureaucratic misery into which thousands of families plunged and the lying to the House of Representatives ultimately not serious enough to attach political consequences to it. However, the four parties did reach a motion that expressed “sorrow and disapproval” about sixty years of gas extraction in Groningen.
Rutte himself could count on a lot of clamor from the public gallery that was packed with residents and earthquake victims from Groningen.
Rutte does not want to know about giving way
And despite the fact that the conclusions in the survey report ‘Groningers above gas’ were hard as nails, also about Rutte’s role, about gas extraction, Rutte did not want to budge. Rutte had a very tough time several times during the debate, but proved elusive all the time, aided by the coalition. Several factions wondered why he did not keep the honor to himself.
Member of Parliament Sandra Beckerman (SP) from Groningen, who received great admiration for her input during the first day of debate, said that Rutte should “actually be ashamed that a motion of no confidence is needed at all” to let him leave. According to the SP Member of Parliament, the prime minister “doesn’t get it” when he comes up with the analysis that after the quake at Huizinge, it finally took the road upwards. The other Groningen MP Henk Nijboer (PvdA) said that Rutte is someone who “is trying to nail a pudding to the wall”.
Rutte visibly got into trouble when Beckerman asked him whether the prime minister agrees with her that the “treatment of duped Groningen residents was harsh and unjustified and the criteria were not good?” Rutte immediately answered in the affirmative (“certainly”), to which Beckerman pointed out that “according to the prime minister, this was the decisive argument for [in 2021] to get involved in the surcharge scandal. That it was harsh, unjustified and that the criteria were wrong. So why doesn’t he come to the same conclusion now?”
‘Collateral damage’
The anger of Beckerman and Jesse Klaver was therefore part of Rutte’s answer to why he does not want to resign now, while the child allowance affair does. Rutte stated that the affair was terrible in everything, while at Groningen initially only positive things seemed to be attached to the exploitation of the soil estimate (gas extraction) until the “dramatic collateral damage” arose. “Collateral damage, and that is my opinion,” said Rutte.
Beckerman was furious: ,,We are not collateral damage. Thousands of families have been in trouble.” Rutte shook his head wildly. He hadn’t meant it that way, he wanted to say, but the VVD prime minister seemed visibly shocked by his own words.
Rutte admitted in the debate that he had not done enough for Groningen, but also said that he has “the absolute conviction” that he wants to be “part of the way forward to make these things happen.” [voor Groningen] also to perform. That is my absolute ambition. That is why I want to continue,” said the prime minister about his motivation.
‘Complete faith in politics lost’
Geert Jan ten Brink, former mayor of Slochteren and currently dike warden of the Hunze en Aa’s water board, is one of the regional administrators who stared blankly into space on Wednesday. The debate is less than an hour old and Ten Brink, who was also interrogated by the committee of inquiry, calls it “bizarre to see a prime minister flatly spreading lies”. According to the former mayor, this is a “disconcerting observation”.
Ten Brink was not alone in his observation. There were sounds such as “complete confidence in politics lost” and “that the limit has been reached, but that nothing will change”.
Former chairman of the committee of inquiry Tom van der Lee had planned the outcome in advance, but called Prime Minister Rutte’s actions “even more dramatic than expected”.
Coalition will not let Rutte fall
That didn’t happen either. Because although coalition parties Christenunie and CDA felt uncomfortable about the prime minister’s answer and sometimes dared to ask critical questions; they did not drop him. CDA Member of Parliament Eline Vedder, who has been in the House of Representatives for less than a month, was praised for her performance on the first day, but at the end of the ride was more or less accused of having used big words, but ultimately failed to act [lees: de motie van wantrouwen steunen] dared to come.
About the two largest parties in the House of Representatives – VVD and D66 – it was quite striking, and at times embarrassing, that hardly a single critical note was fired at the cabinet. In particular, D66 MP Faissal Boulakjar reported inappropriately that it concerned the inhabitants of Groningen, but was hardly visible at the interruption microphone to even ask a difficult question to Prime Minister Rutte.
The opposition parties also noticed. The PvdA indicated that it had “a lot of trouble with D66 during this debate”, because according to MP Henk Nijboer, D66 was “not very critical” and from which he had “hoped and expected more”.