Johan Remkes becomes ‘mediator’ between farmers and politics | Inland

Remkes will start preparing from 13 July. The idea is that the talks will start in the second half of August, agriculture minister Henk Staghouwer writes in a letter to the House. Staghouwer and nitrogen minister Christianne van der Wal have asked Remkes to independently lead the talks between “the cabinet, other authorities, the agricultural sector and other interested organizations.”

According to the plans of the cabinet, many farmers have to drastically reduce their livestock to protect Natura2000 areas. The farming sector is being killed by The Hague, it sounds in the countryside. Farmers already went to the house of nitrogen minister Van der Wal in Gelderland, where confrontations with the police resulted.

Protests by farmers with tractors are also planned for Monday. For example, Schiphol, one of the largest nitrogen emitters in the Netherlands, expects (traffic) problems and blockades around the airport near Amsterdam.

VVD member Remkes has a lot of experience as a director and he is often called upon as a crisis manager, for example after political problems in Limburg and The Hague. He was also asked last year to pull the lengthy formation out of the doldrums.

Remkes is also no stranger to the nitrogen dossier. He led a committee that wrote two important reports on the nitrogen approach. In it he advised, among other things, to keep targets (three quarters of the protected nature below the critical nitrogen limit and halving nitrogen emissions) that some of the farmers are now opposing.

Prime Minister Mark Rutte has already said those goals during a debate about the farmers’ actions this week. In that debate, Rutte said he was in favor of a mediator. “But we’re not going to sit down with the rioters,” he added. “I’m not going to sit down with someone who is ramming a police bus with a sledgehammer.”

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