Cabinet: Dutch twist on EU nature law ‘unprecedented’, but no surprise | Politics

“It cannot come as a surprise to any European member state that the Netherlands is critical of the nature restoration regulation,” Van der Wal said about the European law.

“The Netherlands was one of the few member states to be very critical of the proposal. All other member states were quite enthusiastic.”

The law obliges all member states to draw up recovery plans for their nature. By 2030, restoration measures must have been taken for a third of the nature reserves where things are currently going badly. It just didn’t get that far. At the initiative of NSC and BBB, the House asked the outgoing cabinet to vote against the proposal in Brussels.

This happened, partly on the assumption that natural law would win a majority anyway. But Hungary also changed its mind at the last minute, meaning the plans have been shelved for the time being. Italy, Poland and Sweden were already against.

Van der Wal had not expected that the Netherlands was needed for a majority. She said in the debate that it is “very unusual” for member states to change positions at the last minute. “That is unprecedented.” It now appears that the Dutch vote against was even decisive.

The Netherlands has successfully negotiated in Brussels to make the natural law less strict. In return, it would be voted for. According to the minister, the fact that Van der Wal was put on a different track by the House is harmful. Despite the turnaround, the cabinet hopes to remain “a reliable negotiating partner”, Van der Wal wrote to Parliament a few weeks earlier.

In December the minister was even more positive. With a negative vote or an abstention, the cabinet would send a signal that it is only satisfied if all wishes are met. “By doing so, we are sidelining ourselves in future Brussels negotiations,” she wrote in a letter to Parliament.

At GroenLinks-PvdA and D66 they think that the cabinet has wasted all the goodwill on this dossier in Europe. “We are an unreliable partner in Europe. We will soon have to pay the price for that,” said GroenLinks-PvdA MP Laura Bromet.

Tjeerd de Groot (D66): “A bomb has been thrown at the Dutch position and Dutch reliability in Europe.”

But two-thirds of the House think it is fine that the Netherlands will not have any additional nature regulations. The Netherlands already does not comply with the 1992 European guidelines, resulting in the current nitrogen crisis.

“If we had caught up on the backlog of the past thirty years, we would now have a different debate,” said VVD member Thom van Campen. NSC MP Rosanne Hertzberger was particularly concerned about the lack of support for even more green rules from Brussels.

Officially, the EU nature law has been removed from the agenda, so it has still been voted on. In theory that could still happen, but Van der Wal does not take that into account. “I don’t expect that to happen before the elections (for the European Parliament in June, ed.),” said Van der Wal.