Help national monuments to be preserved and inhabited

What would the Netherlands be without our cultural heritage? Without churches, without Dutch windmills? Can’t see a farm in the polder? No country estates to dream away in? Cities without a pounding heart? Then our country is literally and figuratively ‘bare’.

Private individuals inhabit and preserve about 40,000 of these national monuments. It is a privilege and a task for them to live there. Because living in and working for a monument is unusual and intermittently Spartan.

Long before prices went up, thrift was the motto because – as the saying goes – ‘you can run out of energy on the energy bill’. The thermostat is set at 17 degrees as standard in many monuments and wearing woolen sweaters and underwear are proven means of getting through the winter.

The current energy crisis unexpectedly and radically puts an end to this delicate balance. The explosion in costs for heat and light will directly affect the maintenance of the monument. Private individuals would like to adapt their buildings to keep sustainable energy inside and to prevent heat leakage to the outside, but it is not possible, it is not allowed and it is not subsidized.

A heat pump will not work if the house is insufficiently insulated. Solar panels should not be installed on the roof as this would disturb the monumental image. Subsidies for sustainability are not awarded if the insulation value of the home is insufficient. Monument owners are bitten by both the dog and the cat, because nothing is possible anymore.

Nobody could have foreseen that in the aftermath of the ‘special military operation’ deployed by Russia, the sustainability of the cultural heritage in the Netherlands will be jeopardized. The Federation of Private Monuments Owners calls on the cabinet to come up with proposals as soon as possible that national monuments can be inhabited and preserved.
Rudi Westendorpchairman Federation of Private Monuments Owners, Brakel

Price ceiling

Prime Minister Rutte blames Brussels that the cabinet was only able to set a price ceiling for energy prices at the last minute, in order to support vulnerable households. Now it appears that there has never been a ban, it just suited Rutte not to have to do too much about the rising energy prices.

This reminds me strongly of the untruths he debited at the time to abolish the dividend tax. If this did not happen, all those multinationals would leave the Netherlands due to the deteriorated business climate. And guess what: they left their head office abroad, so his entire argument could go straight into the trash.

Fortunately, the abolition did not pass the House and that saved the treasury 2 billion in unnecessary expenditure. That money can now be used to support households and SMEs, so that the business climate for citizens and small entrepreneurs in the Netherlands remains at the right level.

Martin van den BergUtrecht

energy companies

As if it is the most normal thing, Minister Rob Jetten told on Budget Day that fifty (!) energy companies are active in the small Netherlands. Of course, each of these companies has overhead to bear and to realize a revenue model. What a waste of energy.
Dick VriesDen Helder

Krom

It’s nice that the cabinet is throwing money at people to help people if their gas bills get too high. It is a bit crooked. Tenants of housing associations have held back massive improvements to their homes in recent years; they did not want to contribute to insulation, solar panels and heat pumps. They wanted the benefits of a lower energy bill, but not the rent increase.

Certainly not every tenant who now gets into trouble is partly responsible for the high bill, but it is time to change the law and remove the non-commitment from the energy transition. So: take advantage of the billions of support now, later just accept that your home will be adapted.
Marcus of AngelsLead

Grants

Of course I also hope that everyone will be able to benefit from the energy ceiling. But first deduct the subsidy received for solar panels, heat pumps and electric vehicles.
Bob van NunenHaarlem

Waste

The catering industry can still have patio heaters whirring, so it is not so bad with the high energy bill for them. What a waste.
Hans van NoordUtrecht

Satisfied

In a company of a thousand people, a disgruntled yeller can command all the attention. The impression that everything is now wrong and wrong, which looms from the media, does not do justice to the situation in the light of our toiling government. The media should be aware of this. The state of affairs is a consequence of our democratic system, which we must be careful with, satisfied or not.
Wim ZeveringErmelo

Bad luck generation

In her letter of 21 September, Esther Pleij asks for extra compensation for the students of the ‘unlucky generation’. However, she forgets that from 2023 this generation will be amply compensated thanks to the virtually free childcare.

Childcare for my two children has cost me about 17 thousand euros in the past six years. As a student, I received a basic grant of 14 thousand euros at the time. So who actually is the ‘unlucky generation’?

Incidentally, my 74-year-old father thinks that he was the most unlucky. As a conscript, he missed eighteen months’ salary.
Hans van den HeuvelAmstelveen

Bad luck (2)

Can’t we do something similar to the energy bill for the generation of students who have had to borrow in recent years? Set a price ceiling for study costs, as a kind of basic grant afterwards, deduct that from the student loan and have the rest repaid?

For students who did not live at home, there will of course be a higher ceiling. Because there is also a group of students who, sometimes for others, borrowed as much as possible because there were no cheaper loans. I even know of a student who borrowed maximum to invest.

All these students then simply pay back the extra borrowed money, as they should. Everyone happy.
Carolien Steenman-VollebregtWooden

People at home

During last week’s parliamentary debates, there was again constant talk about ‘the people at home’. A new variation on the ‘hardworking Dutchman’ and ‘the people in the country’. I propose to stop with this kind of bad-dining and condescending qualifications. Citizens live in this country, so ‘we’ are sufficiently addressed.
Fokko van der VeenGroningen

Lubricating oil

During the General Political Reflections there was a striking statement by Sophie Hermans of the VVD. She argued that entrepreneurs and workers work together to keep the economy afloat.

Understandable from the point of view of the VVD, but incomprehensible that it apparently does not know, or at least does not recognize, that the efforts of hundreds of thousands of volunteers, often of my generation, are precisely the lubricant of the same economy. They work in healthcare, the cultural world, education and asylum seekers’ reception.

One day’s strike by that group, that would really put society in trouble.
Huub MillerThe Hague

repeat shot

For the second time this week I received the same invitation for a repeat jab against corona. Now I wonder whether the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment usually assumes that people over 80 suffer from forgetfulness.
Irma Print, Tiel

Neutral government

Rabin Baldewsingh, National Coordinator against Discrimination and Racism, is “great sorrow” because religious expressions, such as headscarves, are not allowed at police and boas in uniform. In his search and conversations, he has not found a single professional argument why the headscarf should remain prohibited for women. That is worrying. Did he selectively search and listen?

Fortunately, in the Netherlands we have freedom of religion and belief, which is guaranteed by a neutral government. Important professional groups such as judges, police and boas therefore have business clothing with a neutral appearance, without signs of religion or political conviction.

Worldwide, 57 countries do not have a neutral government, but a government and legislation with Islamic dominance. The result: discrimination against, among others, women and against people of other religions or beliefs. Women without a headscarf can be fined, jailed or lashed there.

That makes me very sad.
Annelies de VriesWageningen

minister

When I had read Jan Douwe van der Ploeg’s clear and visionary piece about the crisis in agriculture, I knew immediately: this man must become the new Minister of Agriculture. Van der Ploeg is announced as ’emeritus professor’, so if the country is lucky, he is looking for a new challenge right now.

The piece can be read as an open application. If I were leader of the ChristenUnie, the party that the new minister is allowed to supply, I would cling to such a candidate.

Not a party member? Don’t worry, as a compassionate citizen I offer to pay the ChristenUnie contribution for him for the next five years. A minister sponsored by society, what more could you want?
Jan GoossensenThe Hague