If more Dutch people start driving electrically, coal-fired power stations are closed and factories reduce harmful emissions, this will also lead to considerably less nitrogen emissions. And so reduction among farmers can then be significantly reduced, the report states.
The fact that that report has not been published is ridiculous, says Omtzigt: “If there is another calculation possible, which means that less ammonia has to be cut in agriculture, then it should at least have been on the table during the debate in the House of Representatives. Now the government says: this is the only plan.”
In any case, he thinks the process has gone far too quickly: “These are very complicated plans worth 25 billion. That is 6,000 euros per household. Normally you take a number of months on these types of plans, now it is completed in two weeks by the Room hunted!” This is conscious, he thinks.
‘Exchanging is not possible’
Ecologist Arnold van den Burg is more cautious about the contents of the report. “We shouldn’t get too rich too quickly,” he says. One nitrogen is not the other: “Nitrogen oxides that can be saved, especially in industry, have a different ecological effect than the ammonia and ammonium that come from agriculture.” Agricultural nitrogen is more harmful than industrial nitrogen, so you can’t just swap it out, he says.
He also has other caveats. “The 2030 climate goals are only an interim position anyway, and we have other policy areas (such as water quality) where nitrogen reduction is also needed.”
no law
The report is not the only thing that has made Omtzigt angry. He is also displeased that no law has yet been made for the nitrogen plan, but only a ‘policy memorandum’. This gives the House fewer opportunities to ask critical questions, but it also makes the plans legally vulnerable. “If you expropriate land without a law, the judge will draw a line through it…”, he thinks.
In NRC public administration expert Paul Bovend’Eert even called this a crime of office. Omtzigt agrees: “It is very normal in a constitutional state that you conduct policy on the basis of a standing law, not on the basis of a law that does not exist.”
Incidentally, more went wrong for the cabinet: Minister Staghouwer also had to rewrite his ‘perspective memorandum’ because the House was not satisfied. “What is still going well, I would say!”, says Omtzigt.
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