The Netherlands: Farmers march en masse on The Hague

Dutch farmers protesting

There were record traffic jams on the Dutch roads on Tuesday as thousands of farmers headed for The Hague to take part in a mass demonstration, hundreds of whom are travelling by tractor.

Motoring organisation ANWB said Tuesday morning’s rush hour, with over 1,000 kilometres of jams, was the worst ever – with queues of 40 kilometres on the A2 from Utrecht to The Hague alone.

Dutch farmers protesting suggested legislation to curb livestock farming. Causing traffic jams on major highways is a good way of getting the attention of a lot of people.

Photos of the event here.

I like the sign that "says", "Milk the cow, not the farmer"

Cheers

Good for them!
I hope they make their government back down.

a reply to: F2d5thCavv2


Following in the footsteps of *Brexit*

To the EU.......

Another one bites the dust!!!

a reply to: F2d5thCavv2

Thanks for sharing.

I miss being in the Dutch countryside.
I had cows as my neighbours

Best of luck to the farmers.

It is mostly about the 'Climate'-laws and anti-nitrogen-rulings that will put loads of pressure on the farmers (red-tape). Also EU rulings, but this time it is mostly the Dutch government itself. The Dutch government has always tried to be the 'best' and the most 'moral' in the EU, to get our leaders in well paid EU-jobs after their time in the Dutch government. Selling out your country to get a better job for yourself is a 'common thing' in The Netherlands. So our government is also trying to be the 'best' with the Climate change (imo: hoax), maybe to get a job at the UN or something...

They have taken many 'ideas' from the Lefty Green New Deal... So you can imagine where the outrage is coming from. (one of them being: getting rid of half of the livestock in the Netherlands, thus killing the farmers businesses).

Dutch farming over uses the land. It is intensive farming and major Dutch banks have their investments in so-called mega-stalls which have increased exponentially in the last decade or so. It is not EU red-tape alone, it is a real problem when so many nitrates are just dumped into the waterways due to greed and not need.

Holland is a tiny place and produces too much food, at least half is purely for export. There are more pigs in stalls than humans living in Holland. Strange but true.

a reply to: eletheia

Lol...nope

What LightSpeed said...farmers can't make a buck because emission regulations etc..

Peace

originally posted by: LightSpeedDriver
There are more pigs in stalls than humans living in Holland. Strange but true.

The Dutch welfare standards in the pig industry are poor, so anything that forces them to change is a good thing. But as you say, the Duch agriculture industry is too intensive and the use of nitrate-based fertilizers, and the tonnage of animal crap is just plain poor for the environment.

a reply to: paraphi

Dutch farmers are regulated to the point where you can hardly make a normal living. Every year some new regulation is thought up and the farmers have to adjust their farm with investments to reduce carbon footprint...

Here's a overview of NO2 output for last year



The darker parts are resp. Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Antwerp and the German Rurh area...the blue area's are highly concentrated farming areas.

Kind of makes sense that they are pissed off that they are again the scapegoat for reducing our country's carbon footprint.

Peace

a reply to: operation mindcrime

A picture paints a thousand words...

reply to operation mindcrime

Lol...nope
What LightSpeed said...farmers can't make a buck because emission regulations etc..
Peace

.......

How the Dutch Fell Out of Love With the EU

After decades of embracing a firmly pro-EU stance, the Dutch appear increasingly out of sorts and disappointed with the European Union.
The Netherlands is too small to be considered a threat, but large enough to be taken seriously: with 17 million inhabitants, it might be called the largest of the small EU member states.
Strategically, the Netherlands has worked to maintain a balance in the EU: among the large countries, and among the institutions. It enthusiastically promoted British membership of the European Community in the 1970s to balance against Franco-German dominance. And it saw a strong European Commission as a way to keep large member states in check and promote the interests of smaller.

On foreign policy, the Netherlands favors strong international engagement but rarely takes a controversial position. The country wants a strong EU in international affairs to amplify its own bilateral foreign policy and address issues for which it does not have the bandwidth by itself. But it wants the European External Action Service to coordinate European foreign policies, not direct them.

Since the early 2000s, the Netherlands’ image as a mainstream, no-nonsense partner has changed: the Dutch have started to view the EU with growing suspicion. EU enlargement in 2004 altered the union’s internal balance and member states’ voting weights.The Netherlands has less of a say than some of the newest members, yet it is one of the largest per-capita contributors to the EU budget. Despite the benefits in mutual trade, a larger union meant the Dutch voice became softer. This proved particularly uncomfortable when member states agreed to hand over more powers to Brussels.
The eurozone crisis added further concerns about the EU’s direction of travel: the Netherlands became a creditor country that was asked to bail out Southern eurozone members while having to take their word for it that they would make the reforms necessary to weather the financial storm. The perception that the Dutch were left paying the bill while other countries flouted the rules became fertile ground for Euroskeptic politicians. It boosted the anti-immigrant, anti-EU popularity of Geert Wilders and made the Dutch government increasingly critical of the commission and ever-closer EU cooperation. The government saw the commission less as the defender of small countries’ interests and more as an overly ambitious regulator with an appetite to expand its reach.

Today, support for EU membership hovers at around 40 percent, feeding speculation that the Netherlands could be next to leave the club after Britain voted to quit in June 2016.
Brexit will also make it more difficult for countries to block decisions in the EU Council under the union’s voting rules.To stop France and Germany from pushing a decision through, a blocking minority of thirteen member states is needed. The EU’s new arithmetic puts smaller (and Northern) states at a disadvantage.

The Dutch government seeks a more pragmatic European Union, not a federalist fairy tale.
It remains to be seen whether the Netherlands can ensure that its interests are protected and its concerns heard in a union that will inevitably revolve around Berlin and Paris. For the time being, the Dutch feel they are being pushed—albeit reluctantly—ever closer to the exit.

carnegieeurope.eu...


Dosent sound like 'Happy Bunnies' to me.

Looks like a Nexit could soon be on the cards!

a reply to: eletheia

With people like Geert Wilders and Thierry Baudet leading the way....lol hardly

Most farmers in the Netherlands are pretty consistent in voting CDA and the whole EU is to far from political view.

Peace

originally posted by: paraphi
a reply to: operation mindcrime

A picture paints a thousand words...

Emission of air pollutants According to target 2020/2030
RIVM = National Institute for Public Health and the Environment

a reply to: eletheia

Eletheia, a lot might happen. Or not. All depends on if the EU can better balance the pushiness of the "Franco-German motor" and the needs of smaller states.

Poland and Hungary (plus UK) are in the Eurocracy's sights at the moment. The smaller Western EU states have so far avoided negative attention, but they'll be easy meat for EU pressure unless they operate in tandem with other countries.

Hard to say. The southern tier of the EU is messy at the moment. Brexit is a constant distraction and potential financial problem for the Union. The group of four eastern countries are resisting, for the moment, "more Europe". But a lot of money flows from the Union and the money talks, often more loudly than the concerns of ordinary people.

I can scarcely imagine that the dysfunction of today's Union is what people like Monnet had in mind.

Cheers

originally posted by: Moravec

originally posted by: paraphi
a reply to: operation mindcrime

A picture paints a thousand words...

Emission of air pollutants According to target 2020/2030
RIVM = National Institute for Public Health and the Environment

It is also tempting to think that the slight increase in ammonia (NH3) is attributed to agraculture but according to what I read, the reduction in fine particles mean the NH3 has nothing to bind with and is thus measured more...

There is also something about AdBlue fuel screwing up the charts.

Peace

a reply to: operation mindcrime

Thanks I hadn't heard of AdBlue fuel, can't follow everything. Think I'll look into jet engines since Schiphol airport is also getting bigger and politicians love it. Same thing with getting the formula one races at Zandvoort in the future, everything ground to a halt with the new regulations but the race must come to the Netherlands!

a reply to: F2d5thCavv2

What happened with this; any response from government or anyone of note?

originally posted by: chris_stibrany
a reply to: F2d5thCavv2

What happened with this; any response from government or anyone of note?

Great question. Disjointed nature of daily journalism makes these items hard to follow.

ETA: last news stories I'm seeing are from nine days ago. They state the protest ended at 3:30PM.

Cheers

a reply to: F2d5thCavv2

Copy that- I just like the idea of the hobbits marching on Mordor. If you will...

a reply to: chris_stibrany

Thousands of irate farmers had driven tractors to The Hague hours earlier in their third large protest in a matter of weeks.

Tractor convoys set out in the early morning, first for the city of Utrecht and later to The Hague, causing long traffic jams across the Netherlands. More than 375 km (233 miles) of roads were blocked, drivers organization ANWB said.

New protests, same tactic, same issue.

Dutch farmer protests

Cheers