On Wednesday we can vote for the Provincial Council elections. Climate, asylum and immigration play an important role in the campaign. What is best for the Netherlands? JA21 party chairman Joost Eerdmans and ChristenUnie party chairman Mirjam Bikker will discuss this in Op1. The police collect data from participants in demonstrations on a large scale. Also from Extinction Rebellion protesters. Hannah Prins is a member of the action group and responds in Op1, in which we also look ahead to tomorrow’s A12 demonstration.
Demonstrating is a fundamental right, but according to experts, such as various professors and Amnesty International, this is increasingly at stake. From research of I invest and Trouw revealed today that the police are collecting personal data of demonstrators and their families on a large scale. Including those of Extinction Rebellion. “It is really shocking that this is happening on such a large scale,” says Hannah Prins. It makes the Extinction Rebellion member think.
“It is criminalizing peaceful protesters. Which we are very concerned about right now.” According to Prins, this can cause people to be afraid to take to the streets. “Thoughts arise to think whether demonstrating is a good choice.”
Adapt to the climate
Holds on March 11 Extinction Rebellion her sixth demonstration on the A12. Hannah Prins, along with probably thousands of others, will take to the streets to demand that the government stop fossil fuel subsidies and that more money is released for climate goals. A subject where she does not find JA21 party chairman Joost Eerdmans on her side. “We need to adapt to the climate, but not adapt the climate. That is a global problem and the Netherlands is very small.”
The fact that we are a small country is irrelevant to Hannah Prins. “We emit a relatively large amount. As a rich country, we have a moral obligation to be the first to come up with a good climate policy. And we are not even meeting our own climate targets.” We must be natural gas-free in the Netherlands by 2030. “In China that is destroyed in three hours,” Eerdmans responds. “We have to start preparing. This can be done by raising the dikes through water management. It is ultimately symbolic politics.”
Spread law
Then there is another important point this election: asylum and migration. The images of the overcrowded registration center Apple Tar, where dozens to hundreds of people had to sleep outside every day, dominated the news this summer. Joost Eerdmans and Mirjam Bikker have different ways of thinking about how the problem can be solved.
“I understand that people are fleeing and in the Netherlands we really have to work to improve that reception. That has been cut for too long. As far as I am concerned, municipalities should organize small-scale shelters. The distribution law will help enormously in this”, says ChristenUnie party chairman Mirjam Bikker.
Eerdmans does not share this view. The JA21 party chairman is not in favor of the law that can force municipalities to receive refugees. The law still has to pass the Senate and the House of Representatives. “It is highly questionable whether that will succeed. It is a coercive law, in which local democracy is not heard.”
