political decision to stop gas extraction has been taken

NOS News•today, 11:08

The VVD stands for stopping gas production in Groningen. “We took that political decision in the House of Representatives. That is very simple,” said VVD Member of Parliament Erkens in a debate. He wants to dispel misunderstandings about this.

Yesterday, the Senate postponed consideration of the law on the permanent closure and that led to a lot of unrest. The VVD in the Senate indicated that it first wanted more information about security of supply and other parties agreed.

Erkens emphasized that the Senate still wants to ask written questions about “guaranteeing broader security of supply”. He underlined that this is the right of the Senate, but that the response can be “quite quickly”.

Erkens also added that it does not help the confidence of the people of Groningen “if we very quickly create the image that gas production would continue” and he called that a bad thing. According to him, other parties have taken the postponement requested by the VVD in the Senate “out of context”.

Erkens said that he also wants more to be done about security of supply in the longer term, but that this is separate from the decision to stop.

In the House of Representatives debate, various parties reacted angrily to yesterday’s events in the Senate. Groningen SP MP Beckerman said that she did not sleep at all. “Groningen has been cheated by politics for years. Now it could finally happen, and then there is another postponement.” GroenLinks-PvdA MP Kröger called it impossible to allow the uncertainty to continue.

BBB and NSC in the House of Representatives also cannot imagine that the gas tap in Groningen is not yet completely closed.

BBB leader Van der Plas said this morning before a new round of formation talks that he has no doubts that the gas tap will be turned off. BBB, the largest faction in the Senate, yesterday supported the wish of the VVD in the Senate not to discuss the law yet.

Van der Plas has now been in contact with her fellow party members in the Senate. “And they are 100 percent in favor of closure. I have been assured that they will vote in favor.”

She understands that people in Groningen are concerned about the delay in treatment. She also said she was unpleasantly surprised by yesterday’s events in the Senate. “They make their own decisions; I am not their boss.”

NSC leader Omtzigt said this morning that the Senate is of course independent, but the postponement has “greatly surprised” him. He thinks that this does not do much good for the confidence of the people of Groningen in the government.

Omtzigt also said that NSC, which is not represented in the Senate, was not involved in the decision. He emphasized that the “House of Representatives has done everything it can to give the people of Groningen certainty”.