Zeeland and North Brabant did not stop their resistance against the Antwerp plastic factory

With the appeal upheld, the question remains for the Council of Permit Disputes whether the Flemish government has sufficiently considered nitrogen deposition from the factory in a Natura 2000 area when granting the permit. This concerns the Western Scheldt & Land van Saeftinghe in Zeeland and the Brabantse Wal. After discussions in recent weeks, the border provinces have decided to withdraw their suspension request, requesting the Flemish judge to immediately stop construction before the permit was examined.

On Friday, November 8, Matthias Diependaele, Prime Minister of Flanders, came to the provincial government building in Middelburg with the Flemish ministers Annick de Ridder (Ports) and Jo Brouns (Environment). There they spoke with the Zeeland King’s Commissioner Hugo de Jonge, deputy Wilfried Nielen (Nitrogen) and the Brabant deputies Saskia Boelema (Water and Soil) and Wilma Dirken (Nitrogen).

After that conversation, Zeeland and North Brabant announced that they would postpone the entire legal procedure for the duration of the follow-up discussions with Flanders. Yet the appeal was never postponed, a spokesperson for the province of North Brabant said, even though it was accidentally communicated that way.

Only the suspension request has now been canceled, although the province says it may fall back on it if the talks fail. In recent weeks, North Brabant has experienced a “positive willingness” in consultations with Flanders to reach further agreements about the Ineos factory and cross-border nitrogen problems in general.

Nitrogen precipitation

The legal resistance of the border provinces has been going on for two and a half years. Zeeland and North Brabant already appealed against an earlier permit in the summer of 2022. The provinces were vindicated because the Flemish government and Ineos could not demonstrate that plants and animals on the Brabantse Wal, such as the black woodpecker, will not suffer from nitrogen precipitation from the factory.

The resistance from the border provinces is causing bad blood in Flanders. Port Minister De Ridder, previously port alderman of Antwerp, called the choice for a new appeal procedure by Zeeland and North Brabant “hallucinatory” and the suspension request “an act of pure aggression”.

For Flanders, the Ineos factory is “the investment of the century”, according to the conservative-liberal New Flemish Alliance (N-VA), the largest party in the Flemish government. Five years ago, the Netherlands tried in vain to bring the factory to Rotterdam.

The factory that Ineos is building is a so-called ethane cracker, where building blocks for plastic are made. In Antwerp, the production process will be exceptionally ‘green’, Ineos claims: according to the chemical group, the CO_2-emissions can be reduced to one fifth of the emissions from the most sustainable ethane crackers of the moment using modern techniques.

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