Report against meat tax was one-sided, biased

A report calling a meat tax “unfeasible” was biased and one-sided, experts told Follow The Money (FTM) after it got a tip to look into the study by the consultancy firm EY. The Ministry of Agriculture formulated the request in such a way that it was almost guaranteed to get the answer it wanted - that the meat tax was too complicated to implement, FTM reports.

In 2020, over 50,000 people signed a petition to implement a meat tax. According to a study financed by the initiators, a meat tax of 2 to 6 euros per kilogram would reduce meat consumption, leading to a significant decrease in nitrogen and greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture. It would raise about 1.4 billion euros, which could be used to support farmers’ income and transition to more sustainable agriculture. And eating less meat is good for people’s health, which could decrease healthcare costs.

Civil servants at the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature, and Food Quality were against such a tax, warning that it would be too complex for the business world and increase pressure on the already overburdened Tax Authority, according to communications FTM got through appealing to the Open Government Act. A meat tax could also create a “stigma” that meat is “bad,” officials said.

Due to the petition and public and parliamentary discussions on the matter, the Ministry agreed to investigate a tax on meat. But it formulated the request to consultancy firm EY in such a way that the conclusion was basically already made, FTM discovered.

The Ministry emphasized to EY that its study should focus on “the complexity” of a meat tax. It should explicitly not focus on the economic consequences, behavioral effects, consumption patterns, and possible environmental or health benefits. “The government policy on this point has been for years that a tax is undesirable, with the main argument being the increase in complexity,” the Ministry told the researchers.

The Ministry got exactly what it asked for. In February 2021, EY published its report calling a national consumption tax on meat “hardly feasible” - “at least in the (very) short term.” The tax’s potential added value to society was only mentioned in passing.

Other researchers called the study problematic. “Because the other aspects of a meat tax, such as environmental benefits, savings in environmental policy elsewhere, and health benefits were not investigated, it was in danger of being a biased story from the get-go,” Geert Bergsma of CE Delft, who conducted the study that formed the basis of the petition, told FTM. “We often see that research is conducted only into a sub-question, and that is perfectly fine if other sub-questions have already been properly investigated. But then the whole story must be told afterward.”

VU professor of integrity, Rob van Eijbergen, agrees. The fact that only the Cabinet’s position is mentioned leads to “targeted reasoning,” he told FTM. “The aim of the research is to demonstrate that the introduction of a meat tax is very complicated.” He called the assignment given to EY “steering, closed, and poorly formulated,” adding that he “would not have accepted this assignment.”

The Ministry told FTM that it still supports its choice to give this “first exploratory research” a limited approach. “Of course, such a decision, if ever made, must be based on consideration of all aspects, such as behavior, environment, and health.”

The Ministry did not address the fact that its limited approach basically made the decision in practice. The study's publication ended discussions about taxing meat. The topic isn’t even mentioned in the Schoof I Cabinet’s coalition agreement.