Cabinet member threatens to resign if Senate further delays Groningen gas field closure
State Secretary Hans Vijlbrief is threatening to resign if his proposal to close the Groningen gas field is delayed any longer by the Eerste Kamer, the Dutch Senate. The Cabinet member in charge of mining policy said he will not play politics with the issue.
"I am not going to take that up that politically, so I will leave," Vijlbrief said in a debate in the Tweede Kamer, the lower house of Parliament , on Wednesday. The debate was briefly halted shortly afterwards because Vijlbrief was extremely frustrated by the issue.
Like several MPs before, Vijlbrief contradicted the speech by VVD MP Silvio Erkens, who said that his party's Senate faction only wants to ask additional questions about the bill before it is handled. He also heard Senator Caspar van den Berg draw a connection with a bill regarding security of fuel supply levels that will not come into effect until 2025 at the earliest.
"That is a delay of between a year, and a year and a half," Vijlbrief told the Tweede Kamer. He said he wants to believe that there has been a misunderstanding, and that the Senate still wants to deal with the proposal quickly.
Otherwise, Vijlbried said national politicians in The Hague will be responsible for "knowingly leaving the people in Groningen in uncertainty for an extra year to a year and a half."
Vijlbrief said he is happy to answer additional questions, although he has "already answered a hundred" of them. But he did emphasize that the political decision to put Groningen residents above the natural gas industry was adopted in the Tweede Kamer by an overwhelming majority of 146 out of 150 votes.
"The country is not governed by the Senate."
The security of the gas supply can only be jeopardized if there are two very cold winters in a row, Vijlbrief emphasized. The chance of this happening is "1 in 80,000" according to calculations by the KNMI, the national meteorological office.
He therefore maintained that the responsible move is to close the Groningen field completely this year. And it is really necessary for the safety of the people of Groningen, he emphasized once again.
