The Dutch government’s long-running emissions dispute with farmers looks set to escalate. The European Commission announced that it will back plans for potential compulsory purchase orders set to impact up to 3,000 high-polluting farms.
The decision paves the way for the forced buyouts of farms, a prospect long feared by campaigners, and sets the stage for a standoff between the central government and regional parliaments controlled by agrarian populists in the wake of recent elections.
In a statement issued Tuesday, May 2nd, the Commission confirmed its decision to greenlight the €1.47 billion remuneration deal, inhibiting the proposals from contravening state aid rules.
The reimbursement scheme will be directed at livestock farmers. The Dutch government is not ruling out mandatory purchase orders if a sufficient number of farms don’t partake in the scheme.
Authorities plan to offer buyout packages of up to 120% of the value of individual farms in exchange for shutting down operations with the 3,000 farms located in environmentally sensitive areas.
There has been previous media speculation as to the covert role played by the EU in lobbying for the emission cuts, with Commission officials exposed as having lobbied for the forced buyout of farmers behind closed doors.
The Netherlands has experienced four years of agrarian turmoil centred on government plans to implement tight new restrictions on nitrogen emissions to avert what it says is a looming environmental disaster. This dispute has propelled the rise of the populist BBB party which topped the polls in recent regional elections.
At an event hosted by The European Conservative, Dutch MEP Rob Roos defended the stand made by his nation’s farmers and said that the restrictions were unnecessary in light of emission cutbacks already implemented since the 1990s. To Roos, the urgency of the cuts suggests an NGO shadow government dictating policy.
The rollout of the buyout plans will no doubt be complicated by the rise of the BBB movement which is set to take charge of regional government in various Dutch provinces following its electoral surge. Dutch journalist and political campaigner Eva Vlaardingerbroek has described the announcement as a “knife to the farmers’ throats” and alleged that the government is attempting to wear down the resolve of farmers with onerous new regulations.
