The big businesses behind the Dutch Farmer’s Movement
Plus: Schiphol shrinkage, and the football hooligan mess
The Farmer-Citizen Movement (BBB) - the party whose massive win in a recent election has forced the cabinet to reconsider major environmental initiatives - was created by an advertising agency.
In 2019, worried that the government’s proposed closure of livestock megabarns in order to meet nitrogen emissions targets would damage their bottom line, the Royal Agrifirm Group needed political influence. The company turned to Remarkable, a marketing agency.
Remarkable came up with an entire political party, lead by a brand character defined as: a “clumsy and unfamiliar personality who quickly grew into her role… with apparent awkwardness (‘I might be too stupid for this’) that gives her an aura of authenticity.”
This brand character became Caroline van der Plas, BBB’s real-life populist leader. Adinformatie reports:
The fact that BBB is not the interest of the farmer but in the interest of the major suppliers, those who see the farmer as a cash cow, has largely escaped notice.
Recently, farms alongside Dutch highways have be flying mile after mile of inverted flags in protest of the cabinet’s nitrogen plans - and in favor of the BBB. Driving through Friesland last week, these flags stirred up more visceral nationalistic sentiment in me (an American) than than any political ad I’ve ever seen before. Except for this 2008 Obama campaign ad, which still makes me cry to this day.
On the road I perceived the inverted Dutch flags as kind of grassroots initiative, of values so deeply felt that they moved me, even if I didn’t share them, or knew if I shared them.
It turns out dairy giant Royal A-ware distributed the flags to farmers.
A little related: Rutger van Lier, one of the most vocal leaders of the Farmers Defense Force, a group which coordinates tractor-riding pro-farmer protests and, increasingly, the intimidation of their political opponents, isn’t a farmer. He owns a container rental company and and protests on a blue tractor borrowed from an actual farmer.
This is not say that farmers aren’t involved, or even leading, the movement; it’s worth mentioning that Mark van den Oever, the possibly unhinged leader of the Farmer’s Defense Force, is a pig farmer.
Someone paid for that Obama ad, too. But I think it’s important to remember that what seems like a salt-of-the-earth effort - because it involves Dutch national identity and people who work with their hands to feed the world - doesn’t mean there aren’t huge corporations behind the political movement, just like any other, contributing financially because their bottom line is at stake.
Schipol is shrinking
Cancelled night flights, abolished private jets, and a scrapped runway: big changes are ahead for how we fly in and out of Schiphol Airport.
In response to years noise complaints from nearby residents, the government wants to slash the annual number flights from 500,000 to 440,000 by November 2025. Some of the airport’s proposals to reach this target include:
Abolishing private jets, which produce seven times more noise and emit twenty times more CO2 per passenger than commercial flights. Schiphol reports that 30% - 50% of private flights head to Ibiza, Cannes, Innsbruck - destinations with plenty of commercial flights; they claim, compellingly, that private passengers should go commercial instead. This move follows recent several recent protests against private jets and pollution at Schiphol and Eindhoven Airports.
Cancelling all takeoffs and departures from 0:00 to 5:00 - which would eliminate 10,000 flights per year. Delayed flights would not be allowed to land. Frankfurt, Paris Charles de Gaulle, and London Heathrow have similar closing times. (The day after the airport made this announcement a district court ruled that Schiphol did not follow the correct procedure for flight reductions, so this might not happen right away. Anyway - it’s on the table.)
Canceling plans to construct a new runway, the Tweede Kaagbaan.
The airlines are freaking out!
Marcel de Nooijer, the CEO of Transavia, the number two airline at Schiphol after Air France-KLM, worked up these talking points:
A half million Dutch people will soon no longer be able to enjoy their holiday. The flights that we can still operate will become much more expensive. Flying then becomes unattainable for the teacher, nurse and police officer, with their salary. I am very concerned about the inclusiveness of this measure. Soon you will only be able to go on a flying holiday if you are rich.
But before we get too worked up the depravation of the common man, consider the perspective of Steven van der Heijden, CEO of Corendon, a budget flight and travel agent - who you would expect to have the same view - and actually sees it a different way:
I think the price increase will amount to about 15 to 25 euros per return flight. That is not very much on a package holiday of an average of 1000 euros per person. An accumulation of rising costs will lead to more expensive airline tickets, but we think it is logical that the social costs of flying are increasingly included in the price. Flying has become too cheap in recent decades.
🍿 Some Dutch Background
Being such a small country, the Netherlands engages in “spatial planning” for most construction - coordination across municipal, provincial and national governments.
Schiphol has been (oddly) exempt from spatial planning considerations since the 1960s. Meaning that residential construction in insanely noisy areas around the airport went ahead for years. Only in 2019 (!) did a legal change categorize Schiphol as ordinary public infrastructure, just like highways and railways, making it mandatory for the airport to implement measures considering the surrounding environment.
At the broadest level, the debate over Schiphol’s shrinkage reflects the complexity of nearly every contentious issue in the Netherlands today. It requires a balancing the wishes of local populations, businesses, consumers, voters, the environment, and the climate, and it all has to work within the framework of both Dutch and EU laws.
Fencing in the hooligans
Fans set off so many fireworks at a Feyenoord-Ajax semifinal game this week that gameplay was stopped due to smoke; an Ajax player sustained a head injury when hit with a lighter thrown from the stands; and fans were recorded shouting anti-semitic remarks.
Football hooliganism is on the rise in the Netherlands - now with more and more fans attacking players. According to sociologist Ramon Spaaij:
The negative spiral is difficult to turn around. Once incidents occur in certain places, it becomes more likely to happen more often. Others start imitating it, and such behavior normalizes.
Frank Paauw, Amsterdam police chief notes a change in football fan culture.
The young generation of hooligans does not adhere to the code of never touching their own players. In the past, at most, there was sometimes talk of threatening or cursing. It seems that the young growth is more difficult to manage.
This all comes at a huge cost to the state, not to mention that violence in and around stadiums creates atmosphere of lawlessness, the toleration of violence. There are various proposals to reduce the violence including: banning alcohol, banning hoodies, banning known rioters, and making use of fireworks-sniffing dogs. It remains to be seen which if any of these these initiatives will be implemented in the Netherlands.
Another more drastic and much more interesting, I think, proposal: banning all away-supporters at local matches. From mass psychologist Hans van de Sande:
Football resembles society: it is a tangle without clear boundaries between the parts. So you can't really distinguish the 'ordinary' supporters from the noisy ones and you can't distinguish them from the ringleaders. You see and hear that constantly in the stands, the language is uncensored and intense. Violent language is a first step towards other violence. You call the hooligans criminals and that is a somewhat easy dismissal of boys who think they have little to expect from life. The ordinary supporter enjoys the tension and the incidents just as much as the vandals.
For now? Feyenoord plans to shield the entire field with nets for the rest of the season.
🥳 Leuke Dingetjes
A new album from MEROL
One of the best Dutch artists of the moment has a new album.
Dutch-American celeb gossip
Controversial American social media personality (he threw a massive party at his LA mansion during COVID, among other dumb things) turned-MMA-fighter Jake Paul announced his relationship with Dutch speed skater Jutta Leerdam on Twitter this week.
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