Dutchie here.
It’s pretty clear Rutte deliberately caused the collapse by suddenly demanding a new type of asylum policy where a limited number of children could join their parent who found refuge in The Netherlands.
Rutte knew perfectly well at least one of the coalition parties would never accept that and the other two were very skeptical about it. Ultimately, Rutte forced them to agree or disagree by stating the ministerial council would vote about it (and that is very uncommon for a coalition that works on the basis of trust). Beside that, there are way more important issues at hand now, like the nitrogen and housing crisis. And of course climate change. But no, Rutte (provably by incentive of his electorate) suddenly made this a major issue. Mind you: the number of people asking for asylum in The Netherlands this year is around 20.000 up until now and that’s a normal number. No crowds of people seeking asylum to be seen.
So what is this all about? Rutte’s party (the VVD) probably concluded this is the right time to have new elections in order to try and have the VVD become the largest party. Because the largest party usually gets to say who becomes prime minister. And hey, what a surprise, that’s likely Rutte (again).
It’s a setup and everybody and his mother knows it. Rutte is trying to create a new coalition where he can become prime minister again. And he set this up in such a way that migration suddenly is a major issue, where in fact it’s other topics that are much more important.
But it’s not at all sure the VVD will win IMO. The new farmer’s party BBB won the provincial elections by a landslide and I wouldn’t be surprised they will become the largest party. Not that that’s a good outcome IMO, because the BBB often tries to downplay the nitrogen crisis. But my estimate is that most people will decide that the BBB is better than yet another round of Rutte.
Wow. Thanks for the context.
Thanks for the context! Im a bit out of the loop, what is this nitrogen crisis you mentioned?
The EU member states agreed to conserve natural habitats in the nineties. This resulted in what is called the habitat directive.
Every member state should aim for a certain target, but it’s up to the member states to decide upon that target. For example, countries with a large logging industry will provably aim for a certain amount of conservation of forests. But that will inevitably conflict with the logging industry in one way or another.
The Netherlands has an extremely large livestock industry that exports 80% (eighty) to abroad. But cows and pigs also produce large amounts of manure, which cannot be exported. And manure is a source of nitrogen, which damages nature if deposited in high amounts. It’s like over-fertilizing your lawn, by doing it every day. After a while, only the grass and certain nitrogen seeking plants will,flourish, but all other ground live and plants will perish.
The past governments have mostly ignored that up until now because of the export, but environmentalists started litigated in court claiming the government isn’t following the EU directive. In 2019, the highest administrative court suddenly decided enough is enough and ruled no permits could be issued that add more nitrogen to nature.
So as off 2019, the government is busy reducing nitrogen where they can. For example, it’s not allowed to drive any faster than 100 km/h on most highways where it used to be 130 km/h. But also building permits are restricted, because building leads to building traffic and more nitrogen deposition. The same goes for air traffic, which also grew way out of hand as the government tried to establish that Schiphol airport would become the main airport hub in the EU.
So now the biggest challenge of Rutte’s government is reducing nitrogen deposition, which by far the farmers with livestock are mostly responsible for. But just as the logging industry dislikes certain forest conservation policies, farmers started protesting that they ‘suddenly’ couldn’t proceed keeping livestock.
And to be fair, they were allowed that for years simply because governments didn’t want to take the decision when the problem was small. But that’s obviously the sane for governments with regard to climate change. It’s much easier to downplay the problem or agree you will take action ‘in the future’. But this was exactly what was agreed in the EU in the nineties. But not followed up on.
Enter the farmer’s party BBB, who now won in large majorities across the provinces by opposing Rutte’s government and in part downplaying nitrogen deposition.
But yet, Rutte suddenly came up with migration as the biggest ‘problem’. Except that it isn’t but the BBB is difficult to argue with if you want to win elections. Abd that’s probably why Rutte and his campaign team worked out they are suddenly pushing migration as the major electoral problem, so they can try and circumvent the BBB.
Thanks a bunch for the lenghty reply!
You’re welcome.
Dutch parliament planned to go on leave the coming weeks as off today, but they returned to debate today about the collapse of the government.
The opposition has asked for Rutte to resign immediately considering his role in the collapse of the government, which was the direct result of Rutte asking a christian coalition party to refuse children of asylum seekers to be joined with their parent. It was clear upfront the christian coalition party would never accept that, after which the government collapsed.
If Rutte doesn’t resign, a motion of distrust will probably be filed during the debate. If it’s backed by a majority, it’s exit Rutte. The question thus becomes if the christian coalition party that was confronted by Rutte will support the motion of distrust.
For the past decades, farmers have been pushed by the agrarian industry to keep more and more cows for beef and dairy. This has caused huge nitrogen emissions that now are wreaking havoc on our nature. Politicians have been too gummy with the industry, and too scared of their electorate, to do anything about it.
So now they have been forced by the supreme court to drastically cut emissions before 2035. This has caused massive protests from the farmers, who have resorted to violent attacks on the government, and physically threatening politicians and their families.
Tldr; it’s a shitshow caused by political nearsightedness and lack of leadership.
Thanks for your reply!
I had the same question, and it led to an interesting Google search. Turns out it’s been going on a few years now, and even has a wiki entry. A combination of farm runoff and vehicle pollution is screwing up the soil, water, and air. Feels so weird I hadn’t even heard of this.
Thanks! 🙏
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