The municipality of Hoogeveen will remove reversed Dutch flags from municipal properties in the coming weeks. This was decided after a conversation with a number of activists who hung the flags.
The question on the table was whether the activists are prepared to remove some of the flags and not hang new ones. According to a city spokesperson, no agreements have been made about this.
“We sat around the table with three people and had a good conversation. The only thing is that these people do not have a mandate to make agreements with us. They do not represent a larger constituency. It is mainly smaller groups or individuals who have the flags. So the people we spoke to cannot speak for all the activists.”
The theme generated a lot of discussion last summer. Farmers hung flags in protest against the cabinet’s nitrogen plans. In Hoogeveen they were hung from lampposts and traffic lights. According to the municipality, that is not allowed. It would also cause unsafe situations on the road. The municipality therefore wanted to remove the flags itself, but that decision was met with a lot of criticism. Officials were even threatened.
“As soon as we know a name, we always report and report to the police,” the municipal spokesperson explains. Whether that was also done in this case, the municipality does not want to elaborate on.
Several municipalities in Drenthe have now indicated that they will remove the flags in the near future. At the beginning of this month, the province of Drenthe announced that it would do the same along provincial roads. “With autumn approaching, it is necessary to remove the flags along the provincial (waterway) roads,” said deputy Nelleke Vedelaar.
In De Wolden, the college also entered into discussions with the action committee. In the last conversation with the representative of the group, the mayor emphasized that the many flags in the streets are not desirable. The streets to which this applies have been passed on to the committee, they remove a part.
The municipality itself will remove flags from municipal property if this leads to dangerous situations. For example at lampposts where the flags obstruct the lighting. For both Hoogeveen and De Wolden, flags on private property will not be removed.