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“We cannot go back to the order of the day,” said CDA leader Wopke Hoekstra on Tuesday evening after hours of talks about his party’s defeat. “We like to stick to the agreements we have made,” said D66 Deputy Prime Minister Sigrid Kaag earlier that day. The two contradictory statements show that the coalition parties of Rutte IV do not yet know how to deal with the big victory of the BoerBurger Movement in the provincial elections last week. All parties expect the cabinet to move on the sensitive nitrogen dossier, but there are different opinions about the substantive room for negotiation and the pace.
The advantage for the cabinet is that there is no hard deadline for reaching a solution together. It would help the coalition parties if there was some consensus for the parliamentary debate on Tuesday 4 April about the consequences of the election results, but this is not necessary. The formation process in the provinces has only just started and could take months, making the deadline of July 1 to complete the provincial programs on nitrogen seem unattainable. Within the coalition, it is expected that the cabinet will not rush to send the new nitrogen law to the House of Representatives, including the sensitive deadline of 2030, the year in which nitrogen emissions must be halved. That would now be “fuel on the fire”, says a coalition source.
Initiative to the provinces
The coalition parties are circulating various scenarios for the coming weeks. One of these is now to leave the initiative to the provinces, where it is up to BBB to start negotiations. For parties such as VVD and CDA, it may be beneficial to wait and see whether BBB wants to move towards a compromise locally on nitrogen. But even if BBB in the provinces, supported by local VVD and CDA factions, continues to question the ‘2030 agreement’ from the coalition agreement, VVD and CDA in The Hague can increase the pressure against coalition partner D66 to discuss nitrogen policy again. to talk. There is already “a different political reality”, CDA members keep repeating. At D66, the election results are viewed slightly differently: yes, BBB has achieved a major victory, but a majority of voters still voted in favor of an ambitious nitrogen policy.
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Another scenario is that the provinces demand clarity from the cabinet before the council negotiations: should they now start working with a deadline of 2030 or 2035? In that case, it seems inevitable that the agreement in the coalition agreement to accelerate the halving of nitrogen emissions from 2035 to 2030 will have to be renegotiated. government is speeding up nature restoration. In practice, the deadline has already been relaxed somewhat with the report of mediator Johan Remkes from last summer. After CDA leader Hoekstra wanted to declare 2030 “not sacred”, Remkes proposed to insert two interim measurement moments to see whether the deadline is really feasible. It is possible that this process can be made even more flexible.
At previous moments of crisis in recent cabinets – such as the surcharge affair in 2020 and the credit crisis in 2012 – Prime Minister Rutte always tended to convene the leadership of the coalition in the Catshuis to reach a political solution behind closed doors. That option is now also being mentioned, but the CDA is not in favor of it. Backroom consultations would not be an appropriate response to last week’s voter sentiment that “The Hague determines everything” and “does not listen to what is going on in the country”.
Enough parts for a fight
Political wisdom also applies when breaking open the coalition agreement: if one party wants to change something, other parties want it too. There are plenty of other parts of the difficult coalition agreement that the four government parties can easily argue about – think of migration and climate policy.
It is an open secret that Hoekstra and Kaag have a difficult relationship
At D66 they think that the CDA should first make it clear what exactly should be ‘different’ in the nitrogen policy. The party says it has not yet heard anything “concrete” from the Christian Democrats. According to coalition sources, there has been no personal contact at all between Hoekstra and Kaag since election night. It is an open secret that the two party leaders have a strained relationship. A year ago, Kaag (Finance) was already annoyed that Hoek-stra (Foreign Affairs) wanted to revise the coalition agreement just after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
D66 believes that the VVD should also confess its color, because the ambitious nitrogen minister Christianne van der Wal (also VVD) has to deal with provincial VVD factions that have said during the election campaign that they want to oppose the national nitrogen policy. “Prime Minister Rutte must now show leadership,” it sounds at D66.
Two major developments could break the political stalemate next month. A new buy-out scheme from Minister Van der Wal for ‘peak taxers’, farmers around protected nature areas, should tempt agricultural companies to stop voluntarily in the coming months. If the scheme is successful, nitrogen reduction could begin and may eliminate the need for forced expropriation of farmers, an express demand of BBB.
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Another breakthrough could be the Agricultural Agreement that Minister Piet Adema (Christian Union) hopes to finalize in April. Negotiations have been underway for weeks on the agreement, which should offer farmers the prospect of a new revenue model after all the ‘sour’ surrounding nitrogen. A two-day negotiation session in Ermelo ends on Thursday. It is doubtful whether a breakthrough will be achieved there. After BBB’s good election results, farmers’ organizations have dug their heels in. LTO chairman Sjaak van der Tak demanded a “change of course” on nitrogen on Wednesday. Agractie, a club of activist farmers, threatens to leave the consultation table if Minister Adema does not meet their demands on Thursday.
