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By our economics editors

Oct 13, 2023 at 6:37 PM Update: 38 minutes ago

The prices of public transport tickets do not have to increase next year. The outgoing cabinet has allocated 420 million euros for this, which the House of Representatives has requested.

Outgoing State Secretary Vivianne Heijnen (Infrastructure) announced in a letter to Parliament on Friday that the cabinet will implement two motions on this matter.

The House of Representatives previously made it clear that it wants extra money to prevent carriers from significantly increasing the prices of tram, train and bus tickets next year.

Regional transport will structurally receive 300 million euros from next year. The remaining 120 million euros will go to the NS, so that it does not increase train ticket prices next year. This amount is incidental, the ministry reports.

The cabinet has yet to make a decision on the practical implementation of the compensation. This concerns, among other things, the precise distribution between the transport companies in the region.

Image: ANP

2023-10-13 16:37:42
#Bus #train #tram #rides #expensive #year #Economy

Oct 9, 2023 at 8:56 AM Update: an hour ago

Former traffic minister Tjerk Westerterp died on Sunday at the age of 92 in his hometown of Ulvenhout. The former CDA member was also the creator of the AEX index.

As Minister of Transport, Public Works and Water Management in the Den Uyl cabinet (1973-1977), he made the moped helmet and wearing a seat belt mandatory.

After his political career, he made the Options Exchange great, among other things. There he came up with the AEX index: an indicator of how things are going on the stock market. The Amsterdam stock exchange index is still used as an indicator. Many companies see it as a matter of prestige to be included.

Westerterp, born in Rotterdam, ended up in politics after training as a journalist and studying social sciences at the Catholic University of Nijmegen. At a young age he was already active in the KVP, a Christian party that later merged with the CDA.

Before he became minister in 1973, Westerterp was a Member of Parliament, alderman, European Parliamentarian and State Secretary for Foreign Affairs in the Biesheuvel cabinet.

In 2000, Westerterp caused a serious accident due to alcohol abuse. Although his career seemed over at the time, he was still active for Leefbaar Nederland until 2007.

Image: ANP

2023-10-09 06:56:02
#CDA #minister #Tjerk #Westerterp #died #age #Economy

Sep 24, 2023 at 4:54 PM Update: 3 minutes ago

Esther Ouwehand is temporarily stepping down as party leader of the Party for the Animals (PvdD). She does not want to get in anyone’s way as long as there is no clarity about the integrity reports that have been made against her.

“There is still a hitch. To this day, I am not aware of what the reports are,” Ouwehand told the members present at the conference on Sunday afternoon.

The board also does not yet know exactly what the nature of the reports is. New chairman Michiel Knol said earlier in the day that he had not yet received all the information from the old party board.

“That is why it was not possible to serve clear wine today,” Ouwehand continued. She does not want the party to be left with a party leader against whom integrity reports have been made. That is why she wants to wait for the investigation.

What is going on?

A conflict arose within the PvdD more than two weeks ago. The board at the time suddenly announced that it would no longer nominate Ouwehand as party leader. This happened because of integrity reports.

A day earlier, Ouwehand had sent a critical email to the board about the management of the party. She sees this as a reason for the decision that the board took.

Ultimately, after days of much commotion and commotion, that board resigned. Ouwehand was still nominated as party leader.

The board is “disappointed” by the situation but respects Ouwehand’s choice. “We are getting to the bottom of what happened. We assume Esther’s innocence, but we have not yet received the information to determine that. We hope to have Esther back on board soon.”

It is not yet known when the investigation will be completed. Officially, Ouwehand remains at the top of the list, but she will be resigning from her duties in the near future.

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Members at the conference massively support Ouwehand

About fifteen hundred members will be present at the conference on Sunday. They expressed their support for Ouwehand en masse. An amendment calling for her to be removed from the list of candidates was only supported by a few dozen members.

The members also spoke out about the rest of the candidate list. Current MP Lammer van Raan will still be in an eligible position. He was placed in 20th place – at his own request – but still made a bid for sixth place. He received support from enough members.

Van Raan is married to Lieke Keller, one of the founders of the party. As a result, he always has “appearances against him,” he said. Van Raan therefore wanted to explicitly ask for support from the members for his place on the list.

The members have also decided – with the support of the initial number two Christine Teunnissen – to put Ines Kostic at number two. She is seen as a great promise within the party.

The new party chairman Michiel Knol gives a speech at the conference. Photo: ANP

Image: ANP

2023-09-24 14:54:26
#Ouwehand #temporarily #steps #PvdD #party #leader #pending #investigation #Politics

Sep 15, 2023 at 9:46 PM Update: 8 hours ago

Wine growers in Italy are preparing for a bad harvest season. Fungi that attack the vines were given free rein thanks to successive periods of heavy rain and drought. This causes problems with the harvest, especially in southern Italy.

The harvest of wine grapes this year is expected to amount to just under 44 million hectoliters of wine, trade organizations UIV and Assoenologi calculated with the agricultural institute Ismea. That is a decrease of 12 percent compared to last year and the worst score in the past six years.

“This year the leading role was played by peronospora, a fungal disease that, thanks to the numerous rain showers, did not show any mercy to many vines, mainly in the center and south of Italy.” The three organizations write this in their estimates for the harvest season. The peronospora causes downy mildew, which can destroy both crops and vines.

The fungi thrive especially well in moist and warm conditions. It is striking that the northern regions in Italy, which generally suffer more from wet weather conditions, managed to maintain their harvest at a reasonable level. The hardest hit regions were the Abruzzo, known for the Montepulciano d’Abruzzo, and Molise. There, the yield of the vineyards will probably drop by 40 and 45 percent respectively.

Paolo Niro, a small-scale winegrower from San Paolo di Civitate in the southeastern region of Apulia (Puglia), told Reuters that his entire harvest has been destroyed by the fungus. “Already at the beginning of May we realized that there would be no harvest. We work organically and noticed the attack of fungi earlier,” he explained.

Climate change poses a risk to wine growers

The UN Agriculture Organization warned that climate change will cause more frequent extreme weather. This also entails risks for winegrowers, who should take precautions.

Due to the sharply shrinking harvest, Italy has probably lost the position of the largest wine producer in the world to France. But according to Ismea boss Livio Proietti, there will be no shortage of Italian wine, because many unsold stocks have been created in the past year. “The problem is not so much that we produce less wine, but the weakening demand at home and abroad for table wines in particular.”

2023-09-15 19:46:33
#Fungi #threaten #Italian #wine #harvest #heavy #rain #showers #Economy