Farmers’ interests in focus as populists enter Dutch government

Congratulatory messages from far-right parties came from all over Europe after the PVV won the Dutch national elections in November 2023. Party leader Wilders, whose blond hair and far-right ideals have earned him the nickname "Dutch Donald Trump," has since then led the coalition negotiations. Wilders abandoned his bid to become prime minister due to pressure from his coalition partners, which is unusual: the last time the largest party did not provide the prime minister was over 40 years ago. The PVV has a long history of denying climate science and argues that climate measures are unnecessary as well as too expensive for the average citizen. The three other parties are not as extreme in their rejection of climate action, but one partner in particular – the BBB – has farmers’ interests at the top of its agenda.

Protesting farmers driving tractors have become a familiar sight across Europe in recent months, and the Netherlands is no exception. Agricultural workers took to the streets in the country in 2019 when a plan to halve livestock numbers was proposed by the then-cabinet to counter high nitrogen deposition damaging Dutch nature reserves. That same year, a marketing agency that also represents large agribusinesses founded the Farmer-Citizen Movement (BBB). In 2023, the party achieved a major electoral breakthrough by becoming the first ever to win the majority of votes in every single province during the provincial elections. Currently, it is part of the coalition in ten out of twelve provinces.

Although a small country, the Netherlands is a huge food producer: it is the world’s second largest exporter of agricultural products. This leads to high nitrogen emissions that pollute land, water and air. Due to these emissions, the Netherlands struggles to meet the EU Nitrates Directive, which aims to reduce water pollution caused by nitrates used in agriculture.

Agricultural reform has long been a polarising issue in the country. There have been many divisive debates about limiting the number of livestock or the buyout of farms by the government. If land gets bought, provinces can decide what happens with it but no new livestock is allowed to be kept there to reduce nitrogen emissions.

The BBB is an agrarian-populist party, explains Sarah de Lange, a professor of political pluralism at the University of Amsterdam. “This means they create an opposition between two groups, a political elite and the common people. For the BBB, this opposition is mainly found between the cosmopolitan cities on the one hand and the more conservative rural and more peripheral areas of the Netherlands on the other,” she told Clean Energy Wire.

In political debates, “the BBB mainly represents the interests of large agribusinesses and less those of small farmers, who want to switch to organic farming,” according to de Lange. “They side with the big farms and defend their interests when it comes to manure emissions, animal living conditions and investments in technology. They claim that there is no need to limit the number of farms and that technological innovations can solve agriculture-induced emissions. They really represent a specific kind of agricultural sector and a specific view of the agricultural sector,” she said.

Agriculture, fisheries and horticulture receive special attention in the coalition agreement. “Our farmers, market gardeners and fishermen should be cherished because they are important for our food supply, and are an inseparable part of our Dutch culture,” the parties write. The coalition accord states that there will be no forced reduction of livestock and that they aim to introduce farm-specific emission targets, allowing farmers to determine for themselves how to meet them. The parties also aim to reform and water down certain provisions in the EU Nitrates Directive – an undertaking with high hurdles, as such a reform would have to be part of a difficult and lengthy EU legislative process. The outgoing cabinet went to Brussels several times to negotiate exceptions to manure and nature rules but were never successful. 

A year after the provincial elections, the BBB's influence in the energy transition is palpable, although it also had to make many compromises. The party opposed the use of agricultural land for solar panels in all ten provinces in which they are part of the coalition. Earlier this year, the outgoing government included this in national policy, making it possible only in very exceptional cases. The BBB also opposes new wind projects on land, but in half of the provinces it governs, plans have been made to install new wind turbines. This to the dismay of local BBB politicians, but they are tied by previously concluded regional agreements.

The incoming coalition now says it will favour offshore wind expansion over onshore wind parks “as much as possible,” seeking “a careful balance” with the needs of the fisheries sector.

Another hot potato is whether government buyouts of farms to reduce nitrogen emissions should be mandatory or voluntary. One of the BBB's main campaign issues was that this should never be mandatory, and this is now enshrined in the newly adopted coalition agreement. However, the province of South Holland, where the BBB is part of the coalition, has agreed to allow this as a last resort to create and connect nature reserves.

A spat with the European Commission also arose over this issue last year. BBB leader Caroline van der Plas criticised Diederik Samsom, then head of the cabinet of European commissioner Wopke Hoekstra, when he recommended mandatory farm buyouts. Van der Plas said that Samsom was not a “representative of the people” and that “we keep hearing that Brussels is angry, and that is why we are not allowed to do anything anymore.” However, it is up to the member states how they implement European directives, such as the one limiting nitrogen emissions to reduce water pollution.

To make the new coalition government work, Wilders's PVV was forced to abandon its most extreme campaign demands on climate policy, such as abolishing the country's climate law, pulling it out of the Paris Agreement, and halting wind power expansion.

The populists entering the government “will not mean to abolish climate policy,” energy researcher and author Remco de Boer told Clean Energy Wire. He does not expect the country to breach its international promises or European targets. When Wilders and the PVV cooperated with Rutte's first minority cabinet from 2010 to 2012, the government set quite ambitious decarbonisation targets for 2020, allowing the country to fulfil EU requirements, de Boer recalled. "The Netherlands has its European commitments, and regardless of which parties will govern in what form or composition, there is no reason to believe that the government will not see these European targets as binding. The real question is whether they decide to be more ambitious as they have been in the past.”

According to the coalition agreement, the parties decided against upping their ambitions. The text says that they will stick to the existing climate agreements. However, “only if we fail to meet the targets will we make alternative policies,” the parties write, adding that the Netherlands would not introduce more ambitious targets than those adopted at the EU level.