Anyone who listens to Christianne van der Wal on Wednesday may get the impression that the Minister for Nature and Nitrogen only needs permission from the House of Representatives to open a bank account, and is that really worth so much hassle? The major nitrogen decisions still have to follow, Van der Wal (VVD) tells the House, or they have already been taken.
Viewed in this way, the debate over Van Der Wal’s nitrogen fund – or the Transition Fund, as it is officially called – is little more than a technocratic exercise. The minister also talks about it in that language when she explains that she only wants to take a first step – that bank account – in other words: “We are setting up the infrastructure for the law establishing the transition fund.”
According to the Chamber, this explanation is very limited. Because once the fund exists, it will become increasingly likely that the government will also spend the budgeted 24.3 billion euros in taxpayers’ money on the nitrogen approach, while the direction is still unclear for many.
Although the four coalition parties of Rutte IV – VVD, D66, CDA and ChristenUnie – have agreed in the coalition agreement that nature must be so much better off by 2030 that nitrogen emissions must be halved to achieve this, the current law prescribes the year 2035 for. The minister maintains that 2030 is fixed: “I will implement that agreement.”
A vague signature
Strong words, but Van der Wal also knows that practice is less certain. After all, since the provincial election results in March, the CDA has announced that it wants to renegotiate this date and the entire nitrogen approach, a joker card that the party can play at any time.
For example, there are many big questions hanging over Van der Wal’s bank account. It is not for nothing that this is the second time that the House of Representatives has debated the establishment of the fund at length. The same debate was already on the agenda in April, but was then postponed halfway through because there would be too many questions and amendments.
In the meantime, there was good news: the scheme with which the cabinet wants to buy out the largest emitters, the peak loaders, received the green light from Brussels. But other than that, the questions from then are the questions of today: Van der Wal is still unable to provide many answers. As a result, it cannot offer or promise much to PvdA, GroenLinks and the Party for the Animals, parties that are sympathetic to the nitrogen reduction plans, but are left with doubts.
For example, the three parties want – just like a parliamentary majority – that Rabobank, which has partly financed the expansive growth of Dutch agriculture, will also contribute. And they want prospects for farmers who stop or start farming differently.
Read also: Greenpeace is increasing the pressure on Rabobank: ‘Compensating for environmental damage by farmers’
That’s not what the debate is about, says Van der Wal, that’s what the Agricultural Agreement is for. It makes her, she confessed, impatient herself. “We are all anxiously awaiting those answers.” Only: the Agricultural Agreement has also been postponed, it is uncertain whether it will still be reached.
From another angle, Van der Wal is asked how she wants the provinces to make their nitrogen plans in the midst of so much uncertainty. The deadline set by the cabinet is 1 July, but the target year 2030 has not yet been enshrined in law, talks about the Agricultural Agreement continue to muddle and implementation remains foggy.
That is not what it is about today either, Van der Wal tries, but the opposition has little interest in that. Because the skepticism about the fund on the left and the right in the Chamber in fact comes down to the same thing: the cabinet itself has put so much ahead of itself and sown confusion that no one can say what exactly they support by signing.
“This is exactly what happens when, as a kamikaze pilot in the cabinet, you say one thing while this minister has to defend the other,” Esther Ouwehand (PvdD) scoffed at the way Wopke Hoekstra (CDA) revived the year discussion within the cabinet. The fact that Van der Wal says he only wants to take a small step rather increases that skepticism. Because: what then?
“Then we will be here in a few years,” was the cynical prediction of independent MP Pieter Omtzigt. “Then we have spent 24 billion, closed exactly the wrong companies, failed to meet the targets and created administrative chaos.”
Next week, the House of Representatives will in any case vote on the amendments that were tabled this week. It is not yet certain whether a vote will be taken on the establishment of the fund itself.