“The file is not ready to land, especially today.” That is what Flemish Minister of Agriculture Hilde Crevits (CD&V) said about the nitrogen dossier in the competent committee of the Flemish Parliament. Prime Minister Jan Jambon (N-VA) will organize bilateral talks during the Christmas holidays.
The Flemish government has been negotiating a definitive approach to the nitrogen problem for several weeks. Flanders emits too much nitrogen and that threatens our nature reserves. Both industry and agriculture are major emitters. A possible strategy in the approach is extinguishing the sixty largest nitrogen emitters by 2030.
Livestock farmers without high-tech barns, which can partially capture nitrogen, should reduce their emissions by 60 percent by the same year. An important part of the negotiation is the compensation that must be paid.
Bilateral Talks
According to Crevits, however, the file is not yet ripe. According to her cabinet, a landing before Christmas Day is no longer realistic. “There is no sacred house,” the minister assured in parliament. “Emissions have to come down. The livestock is not a sacred house for me either. In any case, the outcome of some measures will be that there will be fewer animals. That is not the starting point, but it is the result of the policy choices you make.”
The cabinet of Minister of the Environment Zuhal Demir (N-VA) indicates that for the time being, only bilateral talks are being organized between Jambon and the other ministers. Jambon himself does not want to say much about the file for the time being. “We are continuing to work on it. This is a poignant story. There are still some points that need to be clarified,” it sounds.
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