The commission also found that the compensation to farmers is “proportionate” because it is “limited to the minimum necessary” and that the compensation “brings about positive effects that outweigh any potential distortion of competition and trade in the European Union.”
“The €1.47 billion Dutch schemes we approved today will facilitate the voluntary closure of livestock farming sites with substantive nitrogen deposition on nature conservation areas,” Margrethe Vestager, executive vice-president in charge of competition policy at the European Commission, said in a statement.
“The schemes will improve the environment conditions in those areas and will promote a more sustainable and environmentally friendly production in the livestock sector, without unduly distorting competition,” Vestager added.
Tuesday’s news release did not state what will happen to farmers who do not agree to voluntarily give up their lands.
Image: Dutch dairy farmer Martin Neppelenbroek at his farm in Lemelerveld, The Netherlands, on July 7, 2022. (The Epoch Times)
Farmers Under Pressure
Protests erupted across the Netherlands last year when the government initially announced the plan to slash nitrogen emissions across the country, including from farms, by more than 50 percent by 2030, and Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s administration made it clear that “there is not a future for all” Dutch farmers under the government’s objectives.
One dairy farmer in the Netherlands interviewed by The Epoch Times last year explained that he would have to cut his livestock numbers by 95 percent in order to meet the government’s new environmental regulations.
Another stated that the government had forced him to get rid of 12 cows as part of its efforts to reduce phosphate, and expressed his concerns that he would have to close down his farm if he was forced to get rid of more.
According to Dutch political commentator Eva Vlaardingerbroek, the plan could see around 3,000 Dutch farmers bought out by the government.
“This is how they do it: they put a knife to the farmers’ throats. They make sure they don’t get their licenses renewed, they’re plaguing them with new rules and restrictions every day and then offer them a bride [sic], knowing many will take it out of pure desperation. It’s all so vile,” Vlaardingerbroek wrote on Twitter on Tuesday.
Vlaardingerbroek also questioned the legality of prohibiting the farmers who agree to give up their lands from starting over again in other EU nations.
“The whole idea of the EU was supposed to be about freedom of movement and freedom of workers. This is some next-level USSR stuff,” Vlaardingerbroek added.
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Featured image: Dutch flag displayed in the window of a farm dwelling. Photo credit: Ewien van Bergeijk – Kwant