MP's agree to cut noise pollution around Schiphol by only 15%

A majority in the Tweede Kamer, the lower house of the Dutch parliament, have supported the government’s plan to not shrink Schiphol too quickly and only reduce noise pollution by 15 percent. Locals living around the Netherlands’ largest airport are disappointed, NOS reports.

Late last year, the Tweede Kamer still adopted an NSC motion calling on the government to reduce noise pollution by 17 percent. The coalition party abandoned that motion during the debate on Tuesday evening. “Something is better than nothing,” said NSC parliamentarian Wytske Postma.

Minister Barry Madlener of Infrastructure said that the government eventually wants to reduce noise pollution by 17 and then 20 percent but doing it too quickly will have too big an impact on airlines. He also called it unwise for the Dutch economy to move too quickly on this. “Certainly when I look at Trump now,” he said, referring to United States President Donald Trump’s import duties and looming trade war.

GroenLinks-PvdA and PvdD, among others, criticized the NSC for abandoning its own proposal to do more. Locals and nature are the victims of the party not standing its ground, said GroenLinks-PvdA MP Habtamu de Hoop.

ChristenUnie and others wanted to know how the current decision to cut noise pollution by only 15 percent would stand up against a court ruling last year, stating that the government wasn’t protecting locals sufficiently against noise pollution. Madlener said he wasn’t worried because noise pollution would decrease.

PvdD MP Ines Kostić wanted to know from Madlener how many flight movements the government intends to cut. “We need to get rid of the left-right thinking in this discussion. We all want to fly to a family member every now and then and that should remain possible, but the limits of our nature have also been reached.” The MP asked Madlener to investigate where the flight limits are, but the Minister found that unnecessary. He said the current issue is to reduce noise pollution.

Kostic called that reaction worrying, speaking to NOS after the debate. “Not only because of the environment, we also have a housing crisis in this country.” According to Kostic, the government is too focused on what percentage to reduce noise pollution by. "It should actually be about reducing the number of flight movements. Madlener talks about 478,000 flight movements, but I have not received any information about what he bases that on." A recent study showed that flight movements can be cut even more without impacting the business climate much.

Locals living around Schiphol watched the debate from the public gallery and were disappointed by the results. They called the measures to reduce noise pollution now insufficient. The Minister is again placing the interests of aviation above those of the locals, resident Femke Brussel told NOS. “A great many people are seriously inconvenienced with all kinds of health consequences.”