The new populist Farmers’ Party (called BBB) won Dutch provincial elections in a historic landslide victory in March. Mainly attracting older voters in rural areas, the party rode a wave of public dissatisfaction about the government’s policies.
Public grievances ranged from the governing coalition’s inadequate response to earthquakes in the north of the country that were caused by natural gas drilling, to the treatment of parents whose applications for childcare benefits were incorrectly classified as fraudulent, to, most prominently, a nitrogen crisis.
In order to meet EU rules and protect biodiversity, the Netherlands needs to drastically reduce nitrogen emissions, whose most important single source is the country’s large agricultural sector.
The government wants to force cattle farmers to shut up shop to bring down emissions, which has prompted a rural revolution. So, what does all this have to do with pensions? Well, provincial parliaments, in which the BBB is now the largest force, will elect a new Senate in May. The Senate is currently discussing the pension reform law.
If it does not conclude its discussions by May, the BBB’s new senators may try to block it. Populist parties tend to oppose hard-to-understand solutions to complicated problems (have you ever attempted to explain to your mother the difference between DB and DC?), and the BBB is no different in this regard.
The BBB’s single MP and party leader, Caroline van der Plas, has dismissed the reform law as “too complex”, and voted against it last December. Asked which issues she wanted to address first in the Senate in a TV interview after her election victory, Van der Plas mentioned not just the nitrogen issue, but also the pension reform. The race is now on.
Tjibbe Hoekstra, Netherlands Correspondent
tjibbe.hoekstra@ipe.com
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