CD&V is floating trial balloons in the nitrogen dossier, fake ideas to delay the process, writes Dries Verhaeghe.
The nitrogen negotiations led to a government crisis. Among other things, the CD&V proposal to not include critical deposition values (CDV) in the nitrogen decree was not well received by the coalition partners. The CDV is the amount of nitrogen that a habitat can absorb before the quality of nature deteriorates. Now that the nitrogen negotiations are serious, more‘false good ideas’ are being floated: solutions that seem obvious at first glance, but upon closer inspection are a bad idea. In addition to scrapping the CDV, the removal or relocation of nature reserves and allowing nitrogen trading also fall into the category of sham solutions.
Minister of Agriculture Jo Brouns (CD&V) justifies his trial balloon to drop the CDV by stating that European regulations do not address nitrogen. Europe indeed only requires that our nature is in a good state of conservation. Such a general benchmark is self-evident within the European context. Salt marshes and mudflats are subject to different environmental pressures than alpine meadows, and the situation in Lapland cannot be compared to that in the Algarve. Nitrogen is a problem in Flanders, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Brittany, but not elsewhere in Europe.
Brouns’ proposal is akin to scrapping the 30 km/h speed limit in built-up areas or the 0.5 per mille drink-driving limit. Drivers are being told that they can drive as fast and drink as much as they like, as long as they don’t run over other road users. A terrible idea.
Brouns may well refer to the Dutch Minister for Nitrogen, Christianne Van der Wal, to lend weight to his proposal that he intends to work with agricultural and nature conservation organisations to find an alternative to the KDW. But there is not even the beginnings of an alternative, Van der Wal admitted. Given that development of the KDW began in the 1980s, Brouns’s suggestion is merely a delaying tactic.
Another such ‘faux bonne idée’ is the abolition or relocation of nature reserves. CD&V chairman Sammy Mahdi suggested as recently as this weekend that we cannot allow our economic growth to be held back by ‘three trees and a rare bat’. But our nature reserves are small and fragmented because, when nature areas were demarcated in 2004, the aim was to protect businesses. The Floordambos to which Mahdi referred is a Ferraris forest; it took centuries to develop. And the Dutch Minister for Agriculture, Carola Schouten, has already sounded out the European Commission on the possibility of abolishing or relocating the nature reserve. She returned empty-handed.
One final idea that is currently being discussed is nitrogen trading. In the Netherlands, some provinces allow nitrogen trading through ‘external offsetting’. This means that the nitrogen emissions you save at location A by phasing out or reducing your livestock can be offset at location B. The airport of Schiphol for example, buys out livestock farmers around the airport to compensate for their nitrogen emissions with those of the airport. The practice is on legally thin ice because the Dutch Council of State ruled that nitrogen rights do not exist. Just like in Flanders, a livestock farming business in the Netherlands is licensed based on the number of animals. The nitrogen emissions are a derivative of that. Just because you can carry out a certain activity does not mean you are allowed to trade nitrogen emissions.
The nitrogen expert panel also raises concerns about nitrogen trading in its report. The most important is that it creates a financial 'lock-in'. If livestock farmers are granted nitrogen rights, it becomes even more expensive for the government to implement policy by buying them out. It is a financial gift for which ultimately the taxpayer pays.
Miracle solutions do not exist. The negotiators know that questioning the KDW’s is a sham manoeuvre. It should not be surprising that Prime Minister Jan Jambon (N-VA) pulls the emergency brake when CD&V comes up with such a fake solution. Hopefully, the spring break will bring some clarity.