CD&V Chairman Sammy Mahdi is watching the Dutch election results with interest. "We must not deny our DNA.
The BoerBurgerbeweging (BBB) of Caroline van der Plas gained almost 20 percent in elections for the Provincial Council and the Senate. What lessons do you draw from the ballot?
Sammy Mahdi: The lessons we at CD&V have been drawing for a while. We know that many people feel a sense of contempt in society, especially in rural regions, also in Flanders.
For example, in the nitrogen dossier, people feel that decisions are made over their heads, in The Hague and Brussels.
The agricultural sector has been given too little perspective, and farmers have continued to resist with reason. And many people sympathize with them. It is not limited to the countryside alone.
How so?
Mahdi: I see that the BBB is also doing well in the cities. We saw something similar in elections in Berlin.
In the inner city, left-progressive parties score well, but in the neighborhoods around them there is a feeling that the city government is only concerned with making the Grote Markt attractive.
I think of Ghent: the concerns in Drongen borough get less attention than the fantasies in the city center. That feeling is very strong.
Do you identify with the BBB, or rather with the Christian Democratic CDA, which has received a hefty pandering and is stranded at 6.7 percent?
Mahdi: The CDA has made very unwise decisions, including in the nitrogen file.
For example, it once enshrined the critical deposition values (the amount of precipitated nitrogen that a nature type can handle, nvdr) decree, which led to follies. The party's attitude was sometimes too pragmatic.
It's obviously more attractive for you to emulate the BBB.
Mahdi: I wouldn't look at it as politically strategic.
I'm in contact with our mayors every day, our tentacles on the ground. The feeling that I am capering, I have been bringing out for some time.
I should not make the CDA report, but we should not deny our DNA.
Consider my criticism of the fact that certain cities receive far more Flemish subsidies per capita than others. While regions like the Dender region, for example, have many challenges.
Meanwhile, ATMs are disappearing from small villages and local commerce is migrating away.
The response from others is that they should then just merge into a larger whole. So no, we must respect the uniqueness of a local community. Otherwise people will feel socially uprooted and we will get the aversion that has now led to the Dutch result.
'We politicians must stop wanting to control everything,' writes Flemish Agriculture Minister Jo Brouns (CD&V) on social media. But shouldn't laws be obeyed?
Mahdi: Above all, you have to provide sufficient margin. The frustration we share is that in the nitrogen story there is flexibility for chemical giants in the industry - and that is allowed, as far as I am concerned - but farmers are put under a gigantic microscope.
And that while farmers want to cooperate. Just look at the fertilizer agreement MAP7, which nature, agriculture and environmental organizations concluded together.
How does the election result influence your stance on the nitrogen file?
Mahdi: My stance is not determined by results in the Netherlands.
Minister Brouns is hugely committed to agriculture. We have to give those people perspective so that they can provide food for generations to come.
They have been laughed at too many times. For example, it was said that they are too small as an electoral group. What an ugly way to think about people.
Doesn't history actually show that agriculture has been given free rein for too long by too lax rules?
Mahdi: But there have been nitrogen agreements in the past, including under Joke Schauvliege (CD&V). Nitrogen has already been cut in half since the 1990s. And agriculture is ready to go even further.
Two sticking points were lifted from the nitrogen agreement for further investigation, including "external netting," in which a farm takes over part of the nitrogen space of a farm that quits.
According to N-VA chairman Bart De Wever, the much-needed environmental impact report (MER) will not give the green light. So you can forget about it.
Mahdi: If he already knows what will be in the MER: duly noted. However, I don't see how external offsetting will complicate nitrogen reduction.
In De Afspraak on Friday, De Wever called you the 'Georges-Louis Bouchez of the Aldi during the sales'. How is this Flemish government still going to be able to govern properly?
Mahdi: I can't appreciate this continuous maneuvering. I can only say that the Dutch people who share my opinion were anything but on sale on election day.
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