Johan Remkes will mediate conversations between farmers and politicians. That is what the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality has announced on sunday† The 71-year-old VVD member will start preparing for the talks from 13 July. They should start in the second half of August, wrote agriculture minister Henk Staghouwer (ChristenUnie) to the House of Representatives on Friday.
Prime Minister Mark Rutte (VVD) agreed last Thursday with the House’s suggestion to appoint an independent mediator who can calm the tensions between the government and farmers. “The cabinet sees the talks as an important place to identify concerns and emotions so that a better understanding is created for each other’s position,” Staghouwer wrote in his letter to parliament.
Rutte emphasized on Thursday that the cabinet is open to dialogue, but not unconditionally: rioters are not welcome at the table and the target agreed in the coalition to halve nitrogen emissions cannot be tampered with. Campaigning farmers do want a line through the entire nitrogen plan.
Recently, Remkes, together with Wouter Koolmees (D66), supervised the last phases of the formation of the current cabinet. Previously, he was also nitrogen adviser to the Rutte III cabinet. In 2019 it was precisely the Remkes committee who an advisory report concluded with the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality that polluting livestock farms had to be bought out.
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