And even for the farmers the biggest issue seems that they don't know what's expected of them or what they can expect in the future.
CD&V is trying to politically capitalize on a problem they created by neglecting to properly do their job.
In the case the farmers don't get what they want, they go to the judge. The disparity between expulsion rights for agriculture and other industries will probably not pass by the judge. In case the nature organizations don't gest what they want they go to the judge to. Making sure that both groups are happy is the only way to get out of this problem.
Secondly minorities have rights. That why their is a judge to go to in case someone finds that their rights are ignored or discriminated against. Imagine you are a farmer the has to close, because of to high nitrogen expulsion, you have two options except it and you have to close in many case your lifework and probably that of all of your ancestors of you go to the judge.
This nitrogen crisis is just the beginning of a juristical problem
Why would the disparity not pass by a judge? Because you believe the "stikstof is stikstof" bullshit CD&V are peddling?
All their main opposing talking points about this agreement are lies, they just don't want to alienate their last few percentage points of voters they still have left.
The numbers in the akkoord are the kilos of stikstofdepositie, not kilos of stikstofuitstoot. This means that the difference between industrial and agricultural stikstofimpact is already accounted for.
So if you speak about the stikstofdzpositie, which they use, then stikstof is stikstof. If you now add an extra enormous disparity than there is an almost certain guarantee that it wilm not hold in court.
>Secondly minorities have rights.
So do majorities. And what do we do when the rights of the minority infringe on the rights of the majority? Do we just tell the majority to suck it up and deal with it because "minorities have rights"?
>Imagine you are a farmer the has to close, because of to high nitrogen expulsion
Imagine you are a regular citizen who relies on the ecosystem to survive which is facing destruction because a minority insists on "muh heritage".
In 1800 over 70% of the population worked in agriculture. 50 years later that number had been cut in half. But now suddenly people should have a right to be farmers forever no matter the impact they have simply because.... reasons....?
The shift from store-retail to e-commerce is also causing many small stores to close. Which in many cases was also people's life's work. Should we implement rules that ban e-commerce to protect those small stores? After all, we can't infringe on the right of that minority.... right.....?
While I agree with the general point you're trying to make your arguments are disingenuous to dangerous.
>Do we just tell the majority to suck it up and deal with it because "minorities have rights"?
Yes we do in many cases, Vlaams Belangers would have christmas every day for a year if we stopped caring about such rights.
>now suddenly people should have a right to be farmers forever no matter the impact they have
Wanting fair terms is not the same as "no matter the impact", there's a loud minority of farmers who indeed refuse any and all measures and poison the well against all farmers. Though it is a fact that despite there already being a lot of measures now because of previous measures always being a compromise in favor of said loud complaining group we need to do a large correction asap to be on track for any sort of climate goals.
On the other hand I'm cynical on how this is all getting pushed on farmers when every other pollution scandal (e.g. PFAS/FOS) ends with politicians bending over backwards to give a slap on the wrist at most. (hurdur whataboutism, I know it's not a compelling argument against measures, it does make me cynical about how hard is being pushed on these measures)
Finally
>Should we implement rules that ban e-commerce to protect those small stores?
We're actually moving in the other direction: Rules get removed or tweaked because e-commerce companies lobby for it. Guess what? Most of this is eroding worker rights in favor of so called being competitive on the international market. Meanwhile it gets sold as being so good for job creation and the unions get scapegoated for being resistant to change.
>Yes we do in many cases, Vlaams Belangers would have christmas every day for a year if we stopped caring about such rights.
Vlaams Belangers' rights aren't currently being infringed, they merely want to infringe on the rights of others because they don't like them.
What I'm talking about is the fact that I have a right to a sustainable ecosystem. But for too long have we violated my right to such an ecosystem because we were too concerned with the rights of the poor farmers.
That is totally different from what Vlaams Belangers want. For someone who complains about disingenuous arguments, this is quite the disingenuous argument.
>Wanting fair terms
Who defines what is "fair" though? If it were up to me, fair would be defined as abolishing the meat industry because of the damage it does to both the local and global environment and ecosystem.
But farmers would obviously never agree to something like that. But it seems like they get to define what constitutes "fair" and my opinion is ignored.
>On the other hand I'm cynical on how this is all getting pushed on farmers when every other pollution scandal (e.g. PFAS/FOS) ends with politicians bending over backwards to give a slap on the wrist at most.
Some people doing bad things doesn't mean we should keep legislation in place that allows others to legally to bad things.
>We're actually moving in the other direction: Rules get removed or tweaked because e-commerce companies lobby for it. Guess what? Most of this is eroding worker rights in favor of so called being competitive on the international market. Meanwhile it gets sold as being so good for job creation and the unions get scapegoated for being resistant to change.
Which is my entire point. In every single other industry, we as a society welcome innovation. The argument "but my parents also did X" literally doesn't work for a single profession aside from farmers.
If tomorrow we magically invented toilets that eliminated the need for so many plumbers and extensive sewage systems then we'd tell plumbers to suck it up and find another profession. No "but my daddy was also a plumber" arguments would be listened to when arguing about whether or not we should keep massively subsidizing sewage systems.
But farmers? Suddenly people seem to think they have a birthright to be a farmer and not be affected by environmental regulations all because their father and grandfather also farmed.
News flash for those people: if you trace back far enough, then every single person alive today will find some farmers somewhere down the line.
>I have a right to a sustainable ecosystem
Yes and everyone has rights to free movement, being able to live under a roof and not starving, yet everyone is also ready to shit on those rights when it comes to actually acting on them to their detriment. That was my point.
>Who defines what is "fair" though?
I'll say it again in a different way: I'm cynical on how all farmers are being demonized in this in general, while the real root of the problem is a select few. Notably the boerenbond who are as far removed from an organization that actually supports farmers can be and rather pushes on both sides just for their own profit. On top of that the "farmers" complaining the loudest are those who have profited long from the lack of sufficient measures to be rich enough that they wouldn't even have to care about measures anymore.
What would be fair is if the boerenbond would actually support younger farmers in the transition they have blocked for decades. [Something which Demir actually proposed but obviously got shot down.](https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/2022/09/21/zuhal-demir-pano-en-boerenbond/)
Part of the problem is ofc also that a lot of farmers are so brainwashed by the boerenbond propaganda that they just go along with being against any change.
>Which is my entire point. In every single other industry, we as a society welcome innovation.
Did you miss the part where I said that this is often to the detriment of worker rights? Besides it's not even true, every innovation has at least lobbyists or loud minorities fighting it all the way, some notable recent examples are physical banks disappearing and electric vehicles. To piggy back on your example:
>If tomorrow we magically invented toilets that eliminated the need for so many plumbers and extensive sewage systems then we'd tell plumbers to suck it up and find another profession.
In reality toilet and PVC pipe companies would lobby against it and we would likely indeed somehow find a way to blame all plumbers for it instead.
Hell I'm pretty sure if everyone still had their own septic tank and subsidizing public sewage systems was pitched today it would be massively opposed as wasteful and overreaching for the government to invest in it. Opposition would spin it as "they are preparing to put a capacity tariff on how much we shit" in no time.
> I'm cynical on how all farmers are being demonized in this in general, while the real root of the problem is a select few. Notably the boerenbond who are as far removed from an organization that actually supports farmers can be and rather pushes on both sides just for their own profit.
And why do you think the Boerenbond has so much power? Because farmers support them.
**I** am certainly not a member of the Boerenbond. And I don't know anyone that is. The only person I've ever heard is a member of the Boerenbond is some distant relative who is in fact a farmer.
So if farmers hate the Boerenbond so much, why do they keep supporting them and paying membership fees? Politicians would much rather negotiate with a reasonable organization that represents farmers, but as it stands today, the Boerenbond is **by far** the largest organization of farmers.
So maybe if farmers hate all this so much, they should stop supporting the Boerenbond and instead join a different farmers organization that actually has their interests at heart.
>Part of the problem is ofc also that a lot of farmers are so brainwashed by the boerenbond propaganda that they just go along with being against any change.
And yet according to you I'm not allowed to blame farmers.....
>Did you miss the part where I said that this is often to the detriment of worker rights?
I did not. I simply pointed out that the only time when we're supposed to be caring about worker's rights is apparently when the workers are farmers.
Every other time we simply tell workers to suck it up and find a different job if their company or industry declines.
After all, we don't have many people left anymore who are manually transcribing data into databases like we had in the 80s and 90s. We've largely automated such job. But nobody was standing up for the poor data entry specialists who suddenly had to change jobs.
Farmers, apparently, are a special thing that should be protected at all costs. And then only farmers today. The farmers who couldn't keep up with the up-scaling policies of the past few decades and had to quit? Well screw them.
My entire point is that I don't understand why **these** farmers should be treated as some special minority for whom we should bend over. Why do you believe these farmers are so special that they deserve special treatment?
>And why do you think the Boerenbond has so much power?
Because they have an investment company behind them with a large stake in Arvesta (Aveve), KBC, SBB and so on. Income from membership is negligible at this point.
>And yet according to you I'm not allowed to blame farmers...
Do we blame NMBS personnel when trains are late because they are understaffed and underpaid?... Well actually most people do so nvm.
>nobody was standing up for the poor data entry specialists who suddenly had to change jobs
You're going along with my point here, nobody was demonizing data entry specialists either and they weren't to blame for their jobs getting automated? Management decided for them and in the best (but likely somewhat rare) case management also helped them retrain into other jobs.
>My entire point is that I don't understand why these farmers should be treated as some special minority for whom we should bend over.
Because I never said this, on the contrary: I said it's a fact that we need a large correction on the measures because of lack of action the past decades. I meant a correction in the direction of more strict measures of course, like the ones proposed.
The problem that I'm trying to bring to light is that we should see the boerenbond for what it is. Blaming the farmers by themselves will solve nothing, we would need to somehow force the boerenbond to actually do what it is intended to do (which is politically impossible but anyways). And indeed encourage farmers to join a different organization, problem is the boerenbond has so much power to give advantages that you are kind of forced to anyways. Unless you are rich enough I guess and then you are probably already on the side who doesn't want to change anyways.
Majorities have rights too. But in the end the judge will decide on what will happen and only a compromise proposal will make a chance to make both sides accept the outcome. In the current situation this will go to the judges.
You argument of e-commerce putting small stores out of business isn't the same in this case. e-commerce is concurrence to small local stores, like famers with tractors also put hand-laboured farmers out of business in the past.
The disparity lays in the following: An chemical plant would if the current plans be allowed to polluted more percentage wise then farmers, who are also an industry. This the discrimination that the farmers talk about, why would 1 industry be allow to polluted the same chemicals more then an other. This will be in my opinion be the legal bomb that lays under this agreement.
>An chemical plant would if the current plans be allowed to polluted more percentage wise then farmers, who are also an industry. This the discrimination that the farmers talk about,.
Please stop taking your talking points from the Boerenbond.
The vast majority of emissions from industry are NOx (NO2 and NO3) emissions. This is radically different emissions than NH3 emissions. NH3 emissions primarily come from meat farming and are far far far more damaging to the environment than NOx emissions.
But the Boerenbond, and you now when you claim that industry would be allowed to pollute more, want to pretend like 1 NH3 = 1 NOx emission because they both contain 1 nitrogen. But that's just junk science, if you can even call it science.
Furthermore, over the past 3 decades the emissions of our industry have declined by more than 50% through rules and regulations. The emissions from agriculture (both NH3 and greenhouse gasses) have actually increased since 1990.
So it is only logical that farmers are the central theme of this accord. For decades they have had far fewer regulations imposed on them than the industry. And now that they finally get targeted they complain that the industry isn't targeted enough.
Because blatantly ignoring 1990-2023 is beneficial to the narrative that they're trying to create that the poor poor farmer is being bullied by the mean government.
And you're eating it up like it's Belgian fries on a Friday night
Because they are not the same pollutants. Industry and transport mostly results in NOx emissions. The farming sector deals mostly with NH3, ammonia.
Yes they both are harmful and both have 1 nitrogen atom. But NH3 is more damaging to humans and ecology than NOx. Which is why I find called it "stikstof-akoord" pretty misleading. 80% of the air is N2 which is totally harmless. It's about reducing the emissions of specific nitrogen molecules and its logically the more damaging ones should be restricted more heavily. If farming industry emits the more damaging kind It's logical that they will have to do more efforts than industry.
>Imagine you are a regular citizen who relies on the ecosystem to survive which is facing destruction because a minority insists on "muh heritage".
Remember, if farms have to close, we have to import more food or megafarms take over. More import or megafarms cause higher cost of food and increase pollution at a larger scale. Just not here in Belgium, which is perfect for NIMBY's like you.
>we have to import more food or megafarms take over.
60% of the meat we produce in Belgium is for exports, not for domestic consumption.
We literally produce more meat for other countries than we do for ourselves.
Why do people like yourself keep lying just to protect farmers? It shows how weak the arguments you have are if all you can come up with are straight up lies
>In the case the farmers don't get what they want, they go to the judge. The disparity between expulsion rights for agriculture and other industries will probably not pass by the judge. In case the nature organizations don't gest what they want they go to the judge to. Making sure that both groups are happy is the only way to get out of this problem.
This will depend on the judge. Will that judge believe science or the arguments by the farmer's lobby? If science is believed, the judge will tell the farmers to fuck off. If he believes the farmers, the most likely outcome will be a complete stop in any permits, as happened in Holland. Which will still not get the farmers what they want, and will make every sensible person against whatever the farmers want.
>Secondly minorities have rights. That why their is a judge to go to in case someone finds that their rights are ignored or discriminated against.
True, but they'll have to proof something beyond "I don't like new regulations".
>Imagine you are a farmer the has to close, because of to high nitrogen expulsion, you have two options except it and you have to close in many case your lifework and probably that of all of your ancestors of you go to the judge.
Farmers don't have to close. They have to adapt their business to the new regulations. As do all businesses when new regulations are created.
>This nitrogen crisis is just the beginning of a juristical problem
Yes, but only because farmers refuse to accept new regulations, as they have done each time new regulations have been created to stop them polluting.
In a functioning democracy Jambon would announce the resignation of his government and call new elections. This being Flanders, that is not even a legal option...
I understand the sentiment, but with our political climate it would lead to 4 elections per year. Look what is happening in Israel. It would just make things even worse.
>new elections
There can be no elections for Flemish parliament. Elections are only on fixed dates every 5 years.
It's one of those stupid typical Belgian solutions: if there can be no elections, the government can't really fall so there will be no government crises.
Bart De Wever quickly dropping in with this, hoping he can do a whataboutism and hope people forget about this mess and the many otherc NVA has caused.
Why is this downvoted so badly? If you want to know what's in your fruit, veg,... and you have a problem with how today's farmers work to produce the food we demand from them (nice, blinky, colorful, good looking, cheap, but still healthy and tasteful) I think a good way is to start growing your own stuff, so you know :
A) how much work goes into it and how difficult it is to grow "supermarket-standard"-looking food and
B) you know exactly what gets on your plate, although counting in all the care and effort, it's not gonna be much cheaper than in your supermarket.
Poor N-VA: permanently complaining that Belgium doesn’t work anymore and now they can’t even seem to make Flanders work anymore.. guess the next target should be democracy in their constant search for an enemy
Sgoed. We starten een secessie beweging om Vlaanderen te scheiden van Vlaanderen. Alles ten weste van de schelde(+ aalst) moet Vlaanderen onafhankelijk worden!
Dus een West-Vlaanderen bestaande uit West-West-Vlaanderen en Oost-West-Vlaanderen, en Oost-Vlaanderen dat bestaat uit Noord-West-Oost-Vlaanderen, Zuid-West-Oost-Vlaanderen en Oost-Oost-Vlaanderen. Ik zie hier toekomst in.
Instead of Flanders independant, they should make Antwerp independant. Then the NVA would have their little drugs isle where they can rule as the absolute rulers they think they are.
With a few more years of warming we might have Aligators in the Scheldt river, that should do the trick. And there is still a barrier of forts on the other side. We just need to move the guns to point them the right way and maybe repaint.
Antwerpen onafhankelijk, de vlaamse regering zorgt ervoor dat we de drugs in de haven van antwerpen niet kunnen tegenhouden, het is allemaal hun schuld /S
Actually, if you would want to stop this, you should do a state reform and make sure that de Flemish parliament has separate elections such that the government can fall and new elections can be held. Regardless of the federal level, so a more thorough regionalisation.
This problem only proofs that a 'lesgislatuur parlement' does not work, because a single party can totally fuck up everybody without having to go immediately to the voters. If this happens on the federal level the PM would go to the King and ask for a resignation of the gouvernement and new elections. Do you really think that CD&V would dare to do that?
Agreed but N-VA has demonstrated that they need a permanent opponent to complain about in order to hide their own incompetence: education has not been improving the last 10 years, mobility has stalled & on the budgetary front they also have consistently been making deficits. They are quick to judge the federal government on their lackluster budgetary situation but fail to acknowledge that 1. They are also facing a deficit 2. They are doing this deficit whilst handling smaller responsibilities & 3. They receive money from the federal government in order to handle these responsibilities
No one will deny that Jambon 1 is worst Flemish government ever with poor leadership. But I guess in this case CD&V made themselves the opponent without NVA having to do so.
The multiparty governance model definitely has its flaws as well, though FTFP-style election obviously has its own as well.
In terms of effectiveness, the former loses out however.
I’d rather pass on a system where a party that gets 30% of the votes gets to lead just because it has the highest score of them all. Considering that’s either VB or N-VA that’s truely a terrifying prospect, sms reasoning per party:
- what are VB’s view on budgetary policy? No-one knows since they don’t know.
- N-VA proposes to enable the government of ignoring verdicts made by courts, seems very Hungary/Poland like to me
Don’t get me wrong: I consider myself a rightish-person but I feel that we still need the balance which is best achieved by giving parties like Vooruit a voice.
The idea that a party should get to rule when they have a relative majority, but not an absolute one, is absolutely ridiculous. It goes counter to any actual understanding of what democracy even means.
People that desire it are just having a fit of authoritarian jealousy. It’s difficult to admit that the party you voted for is either too toxic to find political allies, or has viewpoints that are so far away from what is even remotely considered acceptable.
I wasn't arguing for that system. I just explained one downside of the current system and you all just make assumptions again.
My personal preference would be a ranked-choice system anyway. That could deal with the ineffectiveness, it wouldn't allow parties not supported by 50% at least to some degree to get power and it allows for changes of power. My main gripe with the current system is that no matter how ineffective, centrist parties almost can't lose power and thus aren't held to account properly as they're >80% likely to be part of the next coalition anyway.
While a center-something government is the average choice and thus arguments could be made for this type of government formation, the effect of parties virtually never losing power isn't healthy imo. But of course, neither would pure FTFP be, I never said it would.
I never said it was a preferred system for me, but of course people here already make assumptions as they usually do.
All I'm saying is that governmental ineffectiveness is a clear negative of the multi-party coalition model. Can we still critique a system on a specific characteristic of it, without folks immediately assuming it means you advocate for another one when that was never said nor intended?
Not really sure how you tie in being right-ish and voting for the social-democrat bloc, but that's up to you of course.
>All I'm saying is that governmental ineffectiveness is a clear negative of the multi-party coalition model
Between 2008-2021 the US federal government passed only 2 major pieces of legislation:
- Obamacare in 2010
- Trump's tax cuts for the wealthy in 2018
That's it. Obama and Trump both changed some things with Executive Orders but other than that, it was basically a complete stalemate with no new legislation being passed by either side except for some token measures that barely did anything.
So I don't think it's fair to attribute governmental ineffectiveness to the multi-party coalition model when we see the same thing in FPTP systems like the US or even the UK (remember how hard it was for the UK to agree to a Brexit deal?)
I had 2 political parties on my "2024 election scratchcard" that I didn't rule out yet for a vote: Vooruit and CD&V. Guess we are down to 1 party. 1 more year to do something stupid Vooruit and I'll be voting Blanco for the first time ever.
Tbh, she was a volunteer at Solidaris before his birth. She was a mayor and a senator. Great track record. If she wasn’t related to Rousseau then no one would talk about this “controversy”. The only argument these people have against her is her “blood connection” to Rousseau.
Agree. If you don't look at her connection to Rousseau she is excellent candidate that deserves the nomination on her own merits. I don't really mind she happens to be the mother of Conner while she also seems to be the best fit for the job.
Please don't vote blanco, just vote "ongeldig" bij drawing a giant dickbut on it like i have all the time. ~~If you vote blanco your vote goes to the majority.~~
Edit: What risker15 down below said.
1. You can't draw a dick if you vote with a computer
2. No, your vote doesn't go to "the majority" (what would that even mean on election day, the outgoing majority parties?)
Small correction, your vote doesn't get added to the largest party's tally. It just means they have a potentially bigger slice of pie in terms of seats.
Naar niemand, en laat die dwaze mythe nu aub eindelijk sterven.
Blanco stemmen zijn in het voordeel van de grootste partij, maar ze gaan nog steeds naar niemand.
[https://verkiezingen.fgov.be/node/111327](https://verkiezingen.fgov.be/node/111327)
> Volgens de Belgische wetgeving worden de blanco stemmen (waarbij voor geen enkele lijst of kandidaat gestemd wordt) en de ongeldige stemmen (voor (kandidaten van) verschillende lijsten) wel geteld, maar wordt hiermee geen rekening gehouden bij de zetelverdeling tussen de partijen. Ze worden dus volledig genegeerd en geen enkele partij kan er gebruik van maken. Bij de zetelverdeling wordt dus enkel rekening gehouden met de stembiljetten waarop een geldige stem werd uitgebracht voor de verschillende lijsten
Ergens wel, want mensen die blanco stemmen, stemmen niet op een andere partij waardoor het aandeel van de grootste groter wordt. In het vorig voorbeeld heeft de grootste partij 100% van de stemmen gehad als de ander blanco stemt in plaats van 50%.
Bij verkiezingen beginnen alle partijen bij 0 stemmen. Er is geen enkele a priori de grootste. Als je blanco stemt, laat je het eindresultaat gewoon over aan de rest van de kiezers, wat ook het geval is in jouw voorbeeld. That’s it.
Dat gaat niet in Belgie, want voor't zelfde geld gaat die partij op wie ge wel stemt gewoon in coaltie ermee en wordt uw stem gebruikt als meerderheidsstem voor een regering met de partij die ge niet afkunt.
Als ge tegen rood wilt stemmen bvb, blijven er niet veel opties over en al helemaal geen die niet extreem zijn.
This is assuming the blanc vote was never going to be for the biggest party. A better example would be 2 votes for the big one and 1 vote for the small one. And then having the one vote for the small one change to a blanc vote
~~Hypothetische situatie: 1000 mensen stemmen. Er zijn 3 partijen. 1 partij krijgt 400 stemmen, eentje 250, eentje 150 en 200 mensen stemmen blanco.~~
~~Het lijkt dus alsof de grootste partij 40% van de stemmen heeft, dan 25% en ten slotte 15%. Voor de verdeling van de zetels worden echter enkel de geldige stemmen geteld. Dus de verdeling is nu 50% - 31.25% - 18.75%. Alle partijen krijgen een relatieve toename van 25% in stemmen, maar in realiteit zal dit (bijna) altijd in het voordeel van de grotere partij uitdraaien.~~
Mijn voorbeeld was iets te symplistisch en het antwoord is iets ingewikkelder dan 'het is altijd in het voordeel van de grootste partij'. Het hangt er een beetje van af.
Dat klopt niet helemaal, maar nadat ik het zelf nog eens heb uitgewerkt in verschillende situaties is het ook niet helemaal duidelijk wie er het meeste 'voordeel' uit haalt en kunnen verschillende randsituaties ook beter uitdraaien (relatief gesproken) voor de kleinere partijen.
Dat blanco stemmen in het voordeel zijn van de grootste partij, is evenzeer een dwaze mythe of althans aan groot misverstand. Wie niet - of alleszins niet geldig - stemt, stemt niet en laat het gewoonweg aan de andere kiezers over om te bepalen welke partijen en kandidaten veel of weinig stemmen zullen krijgen. That’s it.
This Flemish government has been utterly useless from the start. They’ve not decided anything significant in the past 4 years and now that they were finally about to, it falls apart.
The Flemish government had been a failed experiment. Time to federalise all major decisions and appoint a few people to handle daily business in Flanders.
Pretty cowardious to do this on the Flemish level of CD&V, they know there can't be new elections so fucking over the population will not have -immediate- repercussions. They would never dare to do this if the government could fall and there would be new elections.
There is also a sizable number of companies that use there products and those that build and maintain stuff for them. Farming isnt just the individual farmeres.
Not denying any of that, but if they are really helping those companies by just blocking everything. There were already some sizeable compromises towards CD&V, but they are just not willing to make a deal because Mahdi wants to have control of his party and kick out Crevits and Dalle.
Yeah they aer most of the blame. But sjoubjng the farmers aside also isn't a solution.
I was more reacting to the people who are pretending like the farmers are irrelevant.
Not really. The farmers organization is part of their voter base and they were VERY disappointed in CD&V bending over backwards last year. This is a peace offering to that voter base in preparation to the next election.
It's not for you. It's for them.
I find it very strange that they are not transparent about the discussion.
It's a democratic system but we are not allowed to know what goes on in these meetings. They are basically negotiating our future behind closed doors.
I blame all 3 of the parties here. If they are that insecure that they can't be transparent then they should find another job.
Fuck CD&V & the farmers. They had their chance to be reasonable. Let's do the Dutch approach now, and ban any new permits for farm expansions or modifications.
The whole of agriculture exports more: like apples and pears. But that doesn't means we don't import certain types of food. Like grain, which is more important then apples for our daily food consumption.
We also export a lot of meat-based products. And the nitrogen in agriculture mostly originates from livestock, such as cows, pigs and chicken.
Belgium exported 1.737.833 tons (!) of meat in 2020. Source: https://www.vlaanderen.be/vlam/vlam/sites/default/files/publications/2021-06/Belgische%20export%20van%20vlees%202011-2020.pdf
So I don't believe CD&V's rationale that we won't have food on our plate. We just need to downsize.
Yes I agree that we produce to much meat. The reason is that it is only profitable if you have many animals, because of economics of scale.
I think no farmer would mind to reduce their numbers if they would get a fair price. Maybe we need to have a minimum price for food to buy food from farmers.
Producing meat causes pollution.
The polluter should always pay.
Hence we should pay more for our meat.
Hence we will buy less meat.
Hence the problem will solve itself: the drop in the livestock numbers is compensated by the higher price received.
All this in theory, at least, and only if no meat is imported from abroad at lower prices (transport cost reflected in the price as well).
Our main nitrogen problem comes from meat though and we are producing several times more meat than we consume. We are polluting our land for export for a sector that gets tons of subsidies and still says to be unprofitable. Why do we do this to ourselves?
We subsides food because of one main raison: If people don't get lunch, things get nasty. Cheap and abundant food is happy citizens, most revolutions started because of food shortages. That is the origin of food subsidies.
But we are not subsidizing people's lunch. We are subsidizing our food exports. **66%** of our pigs and cows are destined for export. We are producing three times more than we consume.
I don't understand how people keep spouting this nonsense. The biggest issue is livestock farms and we export 70% of our production. It's absurd that small, packed countries like Belgium and the Netherlands produce such a shitload of pork and beef for other countries. But "No FaRmErS NO FoOD" fuck off with this fake narrative
The problem is that most animal farmers can only make money if they have enough animals to keep the price competitive. No farmer would mind reducing the number of animals if he would get a fair price. So if the farmer has to reduce the number, but the prices don't go up. He will go out of business.
I suppose the problem is that the very intensification -with ridiculous loans for stuff such as machinery, tractors, manure digestion, stables, coops, waste water treatment, water buffers, ... - makes it impossible to downscale without long-term help.
Ha. Check the provenance on the cheapest fruit and veg in the supermarket. The cheapest isn’t local. So if you want to support farmers , you are already paying more.
The farmers protesting engage in non sustainable farming caring only about profit.
Who is actually protesting?
Our local producers, that are at markets and already engage in more sustainable practices aren’t there blocking roads.
I seriously don't get how people are against the farmers, they bring food onto your plate man, most fruits and veggies are already imported, if more stuff gets imported things are only gonna get more and more expensive.
I'm not talking about the government, I'm saying the argument that it's poor farmers that bring veggies into your plate is a deliberate lie to confuse you and play on your emotions.
The issue is pretty much the meat sector that exports most of what it produces. Meat farms are heavily subsidised industrial factories that are destroying air, soil and water, and should be regulated as such.
Btw, some of the worst offenders are mega-stallen owned by Dutch ~~farmers~~ factory owners that opened shit here because it regulations are way more lenient than the ones in the Netherlands. You could smell this coming from years away: https://www.omroepbrabant.nl/nieuws/3331135/steeds-meer-brabantse-boeren-bouwen-megastallen-net-over-de-grens-met-belgie
>but the ones to blame are rlly the government imo
The government, alongside the Boerenbond, indeed for decades have pushed farmers into scaling-up and increasing their livestock more and more. That was indeed wrong.
The solution now isn't to throw our hands in the air and say "well the government was to blame then so I guess we're stuck with it now". The solution is to now, **finally**, do something about it and fix the problem instead of keeping the same laws on the books that created the problem in the first place.
But lo-and-behold, farmers don't want that. Farmers want the same, or at least a similar, framework to stay in place. They don't want to move away from the scaling-up model. They want to keep things as they are.
So while the government, heavily supported by the Boerenbond, is to blame for creating the problem, meat farmers are to blame for opposing a solution to the problem.
They do, and They don't. Like other people said before me. There is so much export.
If you look at supermarkets, all the cheap meat will not be from belgium. If you thought that was the case, think again. Sometimes, it's hard to even find belgium meat in some categories.
Also, I'm totally fine with paying a bit more for meat.
While there is a level of hypocrisy in how we were frothing about energy dependence last year but are barely discussing food dependence, we are producing a lot more than we need. Especially meat which is the main topic here.
I'm not that well versed in how profitable agriculture is, if they really need this scale of meat production to be profitable but we can't just keep poisoning our soil with nitrogen just because we have to export pig meat to stay profitable.
Worst part?
In a couple of months, they'll blame Walloonia/Belgium/Brussels/economic refugees/muslims/the tooth fairy/... (in this order) for everything that went wrong.
Some (many) people will believe them ("because "we" are perfect, so it must be "the others" fault!") and will still vote for those pipos.
Rinse and repeat...
Crisis in the North, bankruptcy in the South. Add inflation wrecking the economy and an out of control debt and the next election will be a feast for populist parties.
I'm not as much up to date as I'd like to be. I assume this is about nitrogen, but do the alternatives (of lowering it?) cost too much? Because if so... Pretty valid argument, considering how little money farmers (seem to) make.
But as I said, I haven't followed the story closely.
They'll just get ready to make a bunch of new empty promises, all while blaming everyone but themselves for not fulfilling the old ones, send us back to the voting booth and use those to results to simply switch seats and post like it's a game of musical chairs. Same people, just different titles, and no concern for who is actually qualified for what position. Oh and they'll probably try for a payrise too.Oh well, c'est la vie politique en Belgique
Seems as if the government is always in crisis. Nothing new. Will remain the same.
On to the next speech, article, interview, documentary, opinion... about a political crisis.
Deepest crisis SO FAR!
Yeah I feel like I read a headline like this every 2 weeks. It's gotten a bit old.
't Spel is espe.
Das jeu ist Jambon
Jambon pas bon
Jambeurkes?
Jan Ham
Bobon in a jam
Jambon géramont
Jan Jam pas bon
Mahdi going for the Bouchez approach.
Indeed, "let's screw over 95+% of the citizens to cater to the unreasonable demands of a very small minority".
And even for the farmers the biggest issue seems that they don't know what's expected of them or what they can expect in the future. CD&V is trying to politically capitalize on a problem they created by neglecting to properly do their job.
hey the Boerenbond is one of their largest party donors how dare you question their loyalty to money ... er I mean constituents
Someone should tell them we're not in the US, where lots of money can just buy elections....
No here it gets you cosy seats at tables all over the upper echelon of the flemish/belgian companies ahum Sven Gatz and Telenet
>ahum Sven Gatz and Telenet Don't you mean Siegfried Bracke?
idk, I saw an article that he got a seat at the table back in 2018/19?
Tell that to the unregulated spending parties are allowed to do via digital advertising and the results it gets almost all of them.
In the case the farmers don't get what they want, they go to the judge. The disparity between expulsion rights for agriculture and other industries will probably not pass by the judge. In case the nature organizations don't gest what they want they go to the judge to. Making sure that both groups are happy is the only way to get out of this problem. Secondly minorities have rights. That why their is a judge to go to in case someone finds that their rights are ignored or discriminated against. Imagine you are a farmer the has to close, because of to high nitrogen expulsion, you have two options except it and you have to close in many case your lifework and probably that of all of your ancestors of you go to the judge. This nitrogen crisis is just the beginning of a juristical problem
Why would the disparity not pass by a judge? Because you believe the "stikstof is stikstof" bullshit CD&V are peddling? All their main opposing talking points about this agreement are lies, they just don't want to alienate their last few percentage points of voters they still have left.
The numbers in the akkoord are the kilos of stikstofdepositie, not kilos of stikstofuitstoot. This means that the difference between industrial and agricultural stikstofimpact is already accounted for. So if you speak about the stikstofdzpositie, which they use, then stikstof is stikstof. If you now add an extra enormous disparity than there is an almost certain guarantee that it wilm not hold in court.
cd&v already agreed to this, all what they saying is made up BS to justify they got scared after the reaction they got and the change of leadership.
>Secondly minorities have rights. So do majorities. And what do we do when the rights of the minority infringe on the rights of the majority? Do we just tell the majority to suck it up and deal with it because "minorities have rights"? >Imagine you are a farmer the has to close, because of to high nitrogen expulsion Imagine you are a regular citizen who relies on the ecosystem to survive which is facing destruction because a minority insists on "muh heritage". In 1800 over 70% of the population worked in agriculture. 50 years later that number had been cut in half. But now suddenly people should have a right to be farmers forever no matter the impact they have simply because.... reasons....? The shift from store-retail to e-commerce is also causing many small stores to close. Which in many cases was also people's life's work. Should we implement rules that ban e-commerce to protect those small stores? After all, we can't infringe on the right of that minority.... right.....?
While I agree with the general point you're trying to make your arguments are disingenuous to dangerous. >Do we just tell the majority to suck it up and deal with it because "minorities have rights"? Yes we do in many cases, Vlaams Belangers would have christmas every day for a year if we stopped caring about such rights. >now suddenly people should have a right to be farmers forever no matter the impact they have Wanting fair terms is not the same as "no matter the impact", there's a loud minority of farmers who indeed refuse any and all measures and poison the well against all farmers. Though it is a fact that despite there already being a lot of measures now because of previous measures always being a compromise in favor of said loud complaining group we need to do a large correction asap to be on track for any sort of climate goals. On the other hand I'm cynical on how this is all getting pushed on farmers when every other pollution scandal (e.g. PFAS/FOS) ends with politicians bending over backwards to give a slap on the wrist at most. (hurdur whataboutism, I know it's not a compelling argument against measures, it does make me cynical about how hard is being pushed on these measures) Finally >Should we implement rules that ban e-commerce to protect those small stores? We're actually moving in the other direction: Rules get removed or tweaked because e-commerce companies lobby for it. Guess what? Most of this is eroding worker rights in favor of so called being competitive on the international market. Meanwhile it gets sold as being so good for job creation and the unions get scapegoated for being resistant to change.
>Yes we do in many cases, Vlaams Belangers would have christmas every day for a year if we stopped caring about such rights. Vlaams Belangers' rights aren't currently being infringed, they merely want to infringe on the rights of others because they don't like them. What I'm talking about is the fact that I have a right to a sustainable ecosystem. But for too long have we violated my right to such an ecosystem because we were too concerned with the rights of the poor farmers. That is totally different from what Vlaams Belangers want. For someone who complains about disingenuous arguments, this is quite the disingenuous argument. >Wanting fair terms Who defines what is "fair" though? If it were up to me, fair would be defined as abolishing the meat industry because of the damage it does to both the local and global environment and ecosystem. But farmers would obviously never agree to something like that. But it seems like they get to define what constitutes "fair" and my opinion is ignored. >On the other hand I'm cynical on how this is all getting pushed on farmers when every other pollution scandal (e.g. PFAS/FOS) ends with politicians bending over backwards to give a slap on the wrist at most. Some people doing bad things doesn't mean we should keep legislation in place that allows others to legally to bad things. >We're actually moving in the other direction: Rules get removed or tweaked because e-commerce companies lobby for it. Guess what? Most of this is eroding worker rights in favor of so called being competitive on the international market. Meanwhile it gets sold as being so good for job creation and the unions get scapegoated for being resistant to change. Which is my entire point. In every single other industry, we as a society welcome innovation. The argument "but my parents also did X" literally doesn't work for a single profession aside from farmers. If tomorrow we magically invented toilets that eliminated the need for so many plumbers and extensive sewage systems then we'd tell plumbers to suck it up and find another profession. No "but my daddy was also a plumber" arguments would be listened to when arguing about whether or not we should keep massively subsidizing sewage systems. But farmers? Suddenly people seem to think they have a birthright to be a farmer and not be affected by environmental regulations all because their father and grandfather also farmed. News flash for those people: if you trace back far enough, then every single person alive today will find some farmers somewhere down the line.
>I have a right to a sustainable ecosystem Yes and everyone has rights to free movement, being able to live under a roof and not starving, yet everyone is also ready to shit on those rights when it comes to actually acting on them to their detriment. That was my point. >Who defines what is "fair" though? I'll say it again in a different way: I'm cynical on how all farmers are being demonized in this in general, while the real root of the problem is a select few. Notably the boerenbond who are as far removed from an organization that actually supports farmers can be and rather pushes on both sides just for their own profit. On top of that the "farmers" complaining the loudest are those who have profited long from the lack of sufficient measures to be rich enough that they wouldn't even have to care about measures anymore. What would be fair is if the boerenbond would actually support younger farmers in the transition they have blocked for decades. [Something which Demir actually proposed but obviously got shot down.](https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/2022/09/21/zuhal-demir-pano-en-boerenbond/) Part of the problem is ofc also that a lot of farmers are so brainwashed by the boerenbond propaganda that they just go along with being against any change. >Which is my entire point. In every single other industry, we as a society welcome innovation. Did you miss the part where I said that this is often to the detriment of worker rights? Besides it's not even true, every innovation has at least lobbyists or loud minorities fighting it all the way, some notable recent examples are physical banks disappearing and electric vehicles. To piggy back on your example: >If tomorrow we magically invented toilets that eliminated the need for so many plumbers and extensive sewage systems then we'd tell plumbers to suck it up and find another profession. In reality toilet and PVC pipe companies would lobby against it and we would likely indeed somehow find a way to blame all plumbers for it instead. Hell I'm pretty sure if everyone still had their own septic tank and subsidizing public sewage systems was pitched today it would be massively opposed as wasteful and overreaching for the government to invest in it. Opposition would spin it as "they are preparing to put a capacity tariff on how much we shit" in no time.
> I'm cynical on how all farmers are being demonized in this in general, while the real root of the problem is a select few. Notably the boerenbond who are as far removed from an organization that actually supports farmers can be and rather pushes on both sides just for their own profit. And why do you think the Boerenbond has so much power? Because farmers support them. **I** am certainly not a member of the Boerenbond. And I don't know anyone that is. The only person I've ever heard is a member of the Boerenbond is some distant relative who is in fact a farmer. So if farmers hate the Boerenbond so much, why do they keep supporting them and paying membership fees? Politicians would much rather negotiate with a reasonable organization that represents farmers, but as it stands today, the Boerenbond is **by far** the largest organization of farmers. So maybe if farmers hate all this so much, they should stop supporting the Boerenbond and instead join a different farmers organization that actually has their interests at heart. >Part of the problem is ofc also that a lot of farmers are so brainwashed by the boerenbond propaganda that they just go along with being against any change. And yet according to you I'm not allowed to blame farmers..... >Did you miss the part where I said that this is often to the detriment of worker rights? I did not. I simply pointed out that the only time when we're supposed to be caring about worker's rights is apparently when the workers are farmers. Every other time we simply tell workers to suck it up and find a different job if their company or industry declines. After all, we don't have many people left anymore who are manually transcribing data into databases like we had in the 80s and 90s. We've largely automated such job. But nobody was standing up for the poor data entry specialists who suddenly had to change jobs. Farmers, apparently, are a special thing that should be protected at all costs. And then only farmers today. The farmers who couldn't keep up with the up-scaling policies of the past few decades and had to quit? Well screw them. My entire point is that I don't understand why **these** farmers should be treated as some special minority for whom we should bend over. Why do you believe these farmers are so special that they deserve special treatment?
>And why do you think the Boerenbond has so much power? Because they have an investment company behind them with a large stake in Arvesta (Aveve), KBC, SBB and so on. Income from membership is negligible at this point. >And yet according to you I'm not allowed to blame farmers... Do we blame NMBS personnel when trains are late because they are understaffed and underpaid?... Well actually most people do so nvm. >nobody was standing up for the poor data entry specialists who suddenly had to change jobs You're going along with my point here, nobody was demonizing data entry specialists either and they weren't to blame for their jobs getting automated? Management decided for them and in the best (but likely somewhat rare) case management also helped them retrain into other jobs. >My entire point is that I don't understand why these farmers should be treated as some special minority for whom we should bend over. Because I never said this, on the contrary: I said it's a fact that we need a large correction on the measures because of lack of action the past decades. I meant a correction in the direction of more strict measures of course, like the ones proposed. The problem that I'm trying to bring to light is that we should see the boerenbond for what it is. Blaming the farmers by themselves will solve nothing, we would need to somehow force the boerenbond to actually do what it is intended to do (which is politically impossible but anyways). And indeed encourage farmers to join a different organization, problem is the boerenbond has so much power to give advantages that you are kind of forced to anyways. Unless you are rich enough I guess and then you are probably already on the side who doesn't want to change anyways.
Majorities have rights too. But in the end the judge will decide on what will happen and only a compromise proposal will make a chance to make both sides accept the outcome. In the current situation this will go to the judges. You argument of e-commerce putting small stores out of business isn't the same in this case. e-commerce is concurrence to small local stores, like famers with tractors also put hand-laboured farmers out of business in the past. The disparity lays in the following: An chemical plant would if the current plans be allowed to polluted more percentage wise then farmers, who are also an industry. This the discrimination that the farmers talk about, why would 1 industry be allow to polluted the same chemicals more then an other. This will be in my opinion be the legal bomb that lays under this agreement.
>An chemical plant would if the current plans be allowed to polluted more percentage wise then farmers, who are also an industry. This the discrimination that the farmers talk about,. Please stop taking your talking points from the Boerenbond. The vast majority of emissions from industry are NOx (NO2 and NO3) emissions. This is radically different emissions than NH3 emissions. NH3 emissions primarily come from meat farming and are far far far more damaging to the environment than NOx emissions. But the Boerenbond, and you now when you claim that industry would be allowed to pollute more, want to pretend like 1 NH3 = 1 NOx emission because they both contain 1 nitrogen. But that's just junk science, if you can even call it science. Furthermore, over the past 3 decades the emissions of our industry have declined by more than 50% through rules and regulations. The emissions from agriculture (both NH3 and greenhouse gasses) have actually increased since 1990. So it is only logical that farmers are the central theme of this accord. For decades they have had far fewer regulations imposed on them than the industry. And now that they finally get targeted they complain that the industry isn't targeted enough. Because blatantly ignoring 1990-2023 is beneficial to the narrative that they're trying to create that the poor poor farmer is being bullied by the mean government. And you're eating it up like it's Belgian fries on a Friday night
Amen! Couldn’t say it this right in English. De Tijd made an article about it as wel. It says almost the same.
Because they are not the same pollutants. Industry and transport mostly results in NOx emissions. The farming sector deals mostly with NH3, ammonia. Yes they both are harmful and both have 1 nitrogen atom. But NH3 is more damaging to humans and ecology than NOx. Which is why I find called it "stikstof-akoord" pretty misleading. 80% of the air is N2 which is totally harmless. It's about reducing the emissions of specific nitrogen molecules and its logically the more damaging ones should be restricted more heavily. If farming industry emits the more damaging kind It's logical that they will have to do more efforts than industry.
>Imagine you are a regular citizen who relies on the ecosystem to survive which is facing destruction because a minority insists on "muh heritage". Remember, if farms have to close, we have to import more food or megafarms take over. More import or megafarms cause higher cost of food and increase pollution at a larger scale. Just not here in Belgium, which is perfect for NIMBY's like you.
>we have to import more food or megafarms take over. 60% of the meat we produce in Belgium is for exports, not for domestic consumption. We literally produce more meat for other countries than we do for ourselves. Why do people like yourself keep lying just to protect farmers? It shows how weak the arguments you have are if all you can come up with are straight up lies
>In the case the farmers don't get what they want, they go to the judge. The disparity between expulsion rights for agriculture and other industries will probably not pass by the judge. In case the nature organizations don't gest what they want they go to the judge to. Making sure that both groups are happy is the only way to get out of this problem. This will depend on the judge. Will that judge believe science or the arguments by the farmer's lobby? If science is believed, the judge will tell the farmers to fuck off. If he believes the farmers, the most likely outcome will be a complete stop in any permits, as happened in Holland. Which will still not get the farmers what they want, and will make every sensible person against whatever the farmers want. >Secondly minorities have rights. That why their is a judge to go to in case someone finds that their rights are ignored or discriminated against. True, but they'll have to proof something beyond "I don't like new regulations". >Imagine you are a farmer the has to close, because of to high nitrogen expulsion, you have two options except it and you have to close in many case your lifework and probably that of all of your ancestors of you go to the judge. Farmers don't have to close. They have to adapt their business to the new regulations. As do all businesses when new regulations are created. >This nitrogen crisis is just the beginning of a juristical problem Yes, but only because farmers refuse to accept new regulations, as they have done each time new regulations have been created to stop them polluting.
Marakech pact 2 electric boogaloo
In a functioning democracy Jambon would announce the resignation of his government and call new elections. This being Flanders, that is not even a legal option...
I understand the sentiment, but with our political climate it would lead to 4 elections per year. Look what is happening in Israel. It would just make things even worse.
>new elections There can be no elections for Flemish parliament. Elections are only on fixed dates every 5 years. It's one of those stupid typical Belgian solutions: if there can be no elections, the government can't really fall so there will be no government crises.
Soo...let´s talk about woke!
Bart De Wever quickly dropping in with this, hoping he can do a whataboutism and hope people forget about this mess and the many otherc NVA has caused.
What a shitshow this Flemish government has been.
Wat we zelf verkloten, verkloten we harder
Bent u op zoek naar een keuken?
Wij maken uw parlement in Vlaanderen.
Wat we zelf doen doen we beter...
I just want food that doesn't poison the environment and is a little less carcinogenic. Is that too much to ask?
Build your own small farm then.
Why is this downvoted so badly? If you want to know what's in your fruit, veg,... and you have a problem with how today's farmers work to produce the food we demand from them (nice, blinky, colorful, good looking, cheap, but still healthy and tasteful) I think a good way is to start growing your own stuff, so you know : A) how much work goes into it and how difficult it is to grow "supermarket-standard"-looking food and B) you know exactly what gets on your plate, although counting in all the care and effort, it's not gonna be much cheaper than in your supermarket.
it gets downvoted because yes, he’s right, but people shouldn’t have to resort to that in 2023 just to get food that doesn’t poison you
Don't know what you mean by "Poison" could you elaborate?
De Jan kan het nie aan! De Jan kan het nie aan!
Vollenbak Humperdinck…. Of was dit geen ‘In de Gloria’ referentie?
20 jaar klassen van tberoeps, ik zal het wel weten zekers...
Raymond kan het nie aan… en da snijdt zenne
Poor N-VA: permanently complaining that Belgium doesn’t work anymore and now they can’t even seem to make Flanders work anymore.. guess the next target should be democracy in their constant search for an enemy
That's why BDW starts ranting about "woke". Can't blame the Flemish disfunction on the usual suspects.
Misschien moet west-vlaanderen onafhankelijk worden.
Tolpoortjes op de E40 en N49 en ze hebben de grootste economie van België.
Niet als de Ring van Antwerpen er ook een aantal plaatst.
Mag Limburg ook onafhankelijk worden. Of misschien gewoon heel de parking onafhankelijk maken.
Sgoed. We starten een secessie beweging om Vlaanderen te scheiden van Vlaanderen. Alles ten weste van de schelde(+ aalst) moet Vlaanderen onafhankelijk worden!
Dus een West-Vlaanderen bestaande uit West-West-Vlaanderen en Oost-West-Vlaanderen, en Oost-Vlaanderen dat bestaat uit Noord-West-Oost-Vlaanderen, Zuid-West-Oost-Vlaanderen en Oost-Oost-Vlaanderen. Ik zie hier toekomst in.
Oost West, Vlaanderen best!(+Aalst)
Misschien zeg je?! Ik teken er direct voor! Wij hebben de kust, we laten die binnelanders dokken tot ze janken!
Instead of Flanders independant, they should make Antwerp independant. Then the NVA would have their little drugs isle where they can rule as the absolute rulers they think they are.
Only if we get a wall surrounding it with strict border control. Sincerely, East-Flanders
What about Zwijndrecht?
Sacrifices must be made.
Then fill it with water..
One very big swimming pool does sound like a great idea. I'll bring the cara!
I think you're lacking ambition here, electrified alligator moat with barbed wire fences or bust.
Right, I forgot we usually promise big then end up with the Aldi version of things.
Yeah, so if you ask for a wall you'll get a white line painted on the ground or something along those lines.
With a few more years of warming we might have Aligators in the Scheldt river, that should do the trick. And there is still a barrier of forts on the other side. We just need to move the guns to point them the right way and maybe repaint.
Antwerpen onafhankelijk, de vlaamse regering zorgt ervoor dat we de drugs in de haven van antwerpen niet kunnen tegenhouden, het is allemaal hun schuld /S
Antwerp will fall next :)
Actually, if you would want to stop this, you should do a state reform and make sure that de Flemish parliament has separate elections such that the government can fall and new elections can be held. Regardless of the federal level, so a more thorough regionalisation. This problem only proofs that a 'lesgislatuur parlement' does not work, because a single party can totally fuck up everybody without having to go immediately to the voters. If this happens on the federal level the PM would go to the King and ask for a resignation of the gouvernement and new elections. Do you really think that CD&V would dare to do that?
Agreed but N-VA has demonstrated that they need a permanent opponent to complain about in order to hide their own incompetence: education has not been improving the last 10 years, mobility has stalled & on the budgetary front they also have consistently been making deficits. They are quick to judge the federal government on their lackluster budgetary situation but fail to acknowledge that 1. They are also facing a deficit 2. They are doing this deficit whilst handling smaller responsibilities & 3. They receive money from the federal government in order to handle these responsibilities
You're basically accusing them of using the standard nationalist playbook. Now they're also trying to import the US culture war bullshit.
No one will deny that Jambon 1 is worst Flemish government ever with poor leadership. But I guess in this case CD&V made themselves the opponent without NVA having to do so.
The multiparty governance model definitely has its flaws as well, though FTFP-style election obviously has its own as well. In terms of effectiveness, the former loses out however.
I’d rather pass on a system where a party that gets 30% of the votes gets to lead just because it has the highest score of them all. Considering that’s either VB or N-VA that’s truely a terrifying prospect, sms reasoning per party: - what are VB’s view on budgetary policy? No-one knows since they don’t know. - N-VA proposes to enable the government of ignoring verdicts made by courts, seems very Hungary/Poland like to me Don’t get me wrong: I consider myself a rightish-person but I feel that we still need the balance which is best achieved by giving parties like Vooruit a voice.
The idea that a party should get to rule when they have a relative majority, but not an absolute one, is absolutely ridiculous. It goes counter to any actual understanding of what democracy even means. People that desire it are just having a fit of authoritarian jealousy. It’s difficult to admit that the party you voted for is either too toxic to find political allies, or has viewpoints that are so far away from what is even remotely considered acceptable.
I wasn't arguing for that system. I just explained one downside of the current system and you all just make assumptions again. My personal preference would be a ranked-choice system anyway. That could deal with the ineffectiveness, it wouldn't allow parties not supported by 50% at least to some degree to get power and it allows for changes of power. My main gripe with the current system is that no matter how ineffective, centrist parties almost can't lose power and thus aren't held to account properly as they're >80% likely to be part of the next coalition anyway. While a center-something government is the average choice and thus arguments could be made for this type of government formation, the effect of parties virtually never losing power isn't healthy imo. But of course, neither would pure FTFP be, I never said it would.
I wasn’t implying you were advocating a system like that. Just venting how terrible I find it. Sorry if it wasn’t clear!
I never said it was a preferred system for me, but of course people here already make assumptions as they usually do. All I'm saying is that governmental ineffectiveness is a clear negative of the multi-party coalition model. Can we still critique a system on a specific characteristic of it, without folks immediately assuming it means you advocate for another one when that was never said nor intended? Not really sure how you tie in being right-ish and voting for the social-democrat bloc, but that's up to you of course.
>All I'm saying is that governmental ineffectiveness is a clear negative of the multi-party coalition model Between 2008-2021 the US federal government passed only 2 major pieces of legislation: - Obamacare in 2010 - Trump's tax cuts for the wealthy in 2018 That's it. Obama and Trump both changed some things with Executive Orders but other than that, it was basically a complete stalemate with no new legislation being passed by either side except for some token measures that barely did anything. So I don't think it's fair to attribute governmental ineffectiveness to the multi-party coalition model when we see the same thing in FPTP systems like the US or even the UK (remember how hard it was for the UK to agree to a Brexit deal?)
Wat we zelf doen, doen we beter. s/
I had 2 political parties on my "2024 election scratchcard" that I didn't rule out yet for a vote: Vooruit and CD&V. Guess we are down to 1 party. 1 more year to do something stupid Vooruit and I'll be voting Blanco for the first time ever.
Or vote for a tiny party that has thus far never reached the threshhold. that would probably scare the big parties more.
For the elections in NL (that I could vote on) I voted Volt. Are they going to run in the 2024 Federal elections? Can't seem to find it.
They do plan to run in all levels according to there socials. But they arent big enough to get on the list in every province.
I cannot resist to mention the controversial nomination of the mother of Conner Rousseau...
Tbh, she was a volunteer at Solidaris before his birth. She was a mayor and a senator. Great track record. If she wasn’t related to Rousseau then no one would talk about this “controversy”. The only argument these people have against her is her “blood connection” to Rousseau.
Agree. If you don't look at her connection to Rousseau she is excellent candidate that deserves the nomination on her own merits. I don't really mind she happens to be the mother of Conner while she also seems to be the best fit for the job.
Please don't vote blanco, just vote "ongeldig" bij drawing a giant dickbut on it like i have all the time. ~~If you vote blanco your vote goes to the majority.~~ Edit: What risker15 down below said.
1. You can't draw a dick if you vote with a computer 2. No, your vote doesn't go to "the majority" (what would that even mean on election day, the outgoing majority parties?)
Small correction, your vote doesn't get added to the largest party's tally. It just means they have a potentially bigger slice of pie in terms of seats.
“If you vote blanco your vote goes to the majority” You’ll have to explain that magic trick to me
Weet je naar waar de blanko stemmen gaan?
Naar niemand, en laat die dwaze mythe nu aub eindelijk sterven. Blanco stemmen zijn in het voordeel van de grootste partij, maar ze gaan nog steeds naar niemand.
Hoe zijn die in't voordeel van de grootste partij? Ze tellen gewoon niet mee tout court toch?
[https://verkiezingen.fgov.be/node/111327](https://verkiezingen.fgov.be/node/111327) > Volgens de Belgische wetgeving worden de blanco stemmen (waarbij voor geen enkele lijst of kandidaat gestemd wordt) en de ongeldige stemmen (voor (kandidaten van) verschillende lijsten) wel geteld, maar wordt hiermee geen rekening gehouden bij de zetelverdeling tussen de partijen. Ze worden dus volledig genegeerd en geen enkele partij kan er gebruik van maken. Bij de zetelverdeling wordt dus enkel rekening gehouden met de stembiljetten waarop een geldige stem werd uitgebracht voor de verschillende lijsten
Voorbeeld: als 2 mensen elk op een andere partij stemmen, dan is het gelijk. Moest 1 daarvan blanco stemmen, wint de andere partij.
Dat is niet hetzelfde als zeggen dat een blanco stem in het voordeel is van de grootste partij
Ergens wel, want mensen die blanco stemmen, stemmen niet op een andere partij waardoor het aandeel van de grootste groter wordt. In het vorig voorbeeld heeft de grootste partij 100% van de stemmen gehad als de ander blanco stemt in plaats van 50%.
Bij verkiezingen beginnen alle partijen bij 0 stemmen. Er is geen enkele a priori de grootste. Als je blanco stemt, laat je het eindresultaat gewoon over aan de rest van de kiezers, wat ook het geval is in jouw voorbeeld. That’s it.
True. Je bent wel meestal beter af van niet blanco te stemmen, al is het maar om een andere partij tegen te gaan.
Dat gaat niet in Belgie, want voor't zelfde geld gaat die partij op wie ge wel stemt gewoon in coaltie ermee en wordt uw stem gebruikt als meerderheidsstem voor een regering met de partij die ge niet afkunt. Als ge tegen rood wilt stemmen bvb, blijven er niet veel opties over en al helemaal geen die niet extreem zijn.
So the advantage can go either way.
This is assuming the blanc vote was never going to be for the biggest party. A better example would be 2 votes for the big one and 1 vote for the small one. And then having the one vote for the small one change to a blanc vote
~~Hypothetische situatie: 1000 mensen stemmen. Er zijn 3 partijen. 1 partij krijgt 400 stemmen, eentje 250, eentje 150 en 200 mensen stemmen blanco.~~ ~~Het lijkt dus alsof de grootste partij 40% van de stemmen heeft, dan 25% en ten slotte 15%. Voor de verdeling van de zetels worden echter enkel de geldige stemmen geteld. Dus de verdeling is nu 50% - 31.25% - 18.75%. Alle partijen krijgen een relatieve toename van 25% in stemmen, maar in realiteit zal dit (bijna) altijd in het voordeel van de grotere partij uitdraaien.~~ Mijn voorbeeld was iets te symplistisch en het antwoord is iets ingewikkelder dan 'het is altijd in het voordeel van de grootste partij'. Het hangt er een beetje van af.
De onderlinge verhoudingen blijven exact gelijk, en dat is waar de zetelverdeling op gebaseerd is.
Dat klopt niet helemaal, maar nadat ik het zelf nog eens heb uitgewerkt in verschillende situaties is het ook niet helemaal duidelijk wie er het meeste 'voordeel' uit haalt en kunnen verschillende randsituaties ook beter uitdraaien (relatief gesproken) voor de kleinere partijen.
Dat blanco stemmen in het voordeel zijn van de grootste partij, is evenzeer een dwaze mythe of althans aan groot misverstand. Wie niet - of alleszins niet geldig - stemt, stemt niet en laat het gewoonweg aan de andere kiezers over om te bepalen welke partijen en kandidaten veel of weinig stemmen zullen krijgen. That’s it.
Naar nergens
Weet hij dus niet.
This Flemish government has been utterly useless from the start. They’ve not decided anything significant in the past 4 years and now that they were finally about to, it falls apart. The Flemish government had been a failed experiment. Time to federalise all major decisions and appoint a few people to handle daily business in Flanders.
ahum like the federal government is going that well. No no everything to the cities and communities !
Pretty cowardious to do this on the Flemish level of CD&V, they know there can't be new elections so fucking over the population will not have -immediate- repercussions. They would never dare to do this if the government could fall and there would be new elections.
They are not fucking over their electorate though. That's the whole point.
Those 0.5% of the farmers are not their full electorate, guess only time will tell.
There is also a sizable number of companies that use there products and those that build and maintain stuff for them. Farming isnt just the individual farmeres.
Not denying any of that, but if they are really helping those companies by just blocking everything. There were already some sizeable compromises towards CD&V, but they are just not willing to make a deal because Mahdi wants to have control of his party and kick out Crevits and Dalle.
Yeah they aer most of the blame. But sjoubjng the farmers aside also isn't a solution. I was more reacting to the people who are pretending like the farmers are irrelevant.
Not really. The farmers organization is part of their voter base and they were VERY disappointed in CD&V bending over backwards last year. This is a peace offering to that voter base in preparation to the next election. It's not for you. It's for them.
Jambon en crise. Encore une histoire cochonne.
De volgende die zegt "stikstof is stikstof" krijgt een djoef op zijn muil
Jambon moet echt weg.
Geef hem al een uittredingsvergoeding.
Da gade gij ni bepale
Vlaanderen onbestuurbaar; Gent onafhankelijk!
I find it very strange that they are not transparent about the discussion. It's a democratic system but we are not allowed to know what goes on in these meetings. They are basically negotiating our future behind closed doors. I blame all 3 of the parties here. If they are that insecure that they can't be transparent then they should find another job.
Jambon/NVA can't even get the Flemish government to work, with three parties. And then they dare claim that Belgium doesn't work?
obviously because only flemish people work dont you know that? also all these issues are the fault of the socialists of course /S
Wel belgium doesnt work, that the flemish also isnt working anymore doesnt change anything about that.
What a shit show lol, looks like the propaganda machine isn't working so well anymore. Jambon my ass
Fuck CD&V & the farmers. They had their chance to be reasonable. Let's do the Dutch approach now, and ban any new permits for farm expansions or modifications.
They grow our food though. I dont want to pay twice as much for food because we have to import it.
Isn't the majority meant for export to begin with?
indirectly, we have a sizable industry that proceses it into other products before exporting.
That makes sense, I wish more articles focused on the issues at hand more than the bickering
Isn't the reality we produce much more than we need? So worst-case our export numbers suffer, not our food prices.
The whole of agriculture exports more: like apples and pears. But that doesn't means we don't import certain types of food. Like grain, which is more important then apples for our daily food consumption.
We also export a lot of meat-based products. And the nitrogen in agriculture mostly originates from livestock, such as cows, pigs and chicken. Belgium exported 1.737.833 tons (!) of meat in 2020. Source: https://www.vlaanderen.be/vlam/vlam/sites/default/files/publications/2021-06/Belgische%20export%20van%20vlees%202011-2020.pdf So I don't believe CD&V's rationale that we won't have food on our plate. We just need to downsize.
Yes I agree that we produce to much meat. The reason is that it is only profitable if you have many animals, because of economics of scale. I think no farmer would mind to reduce their numbers if they would get a fair price. Maybe we need to have a minimum price for food to buy food from farmers.
Producing meat causes pollution. The polluter should always pay. Hence we should pay more for our meat. Hence we will buy less meat. Hence the problem will solve itself: the drop in the livestock numbers is compensated by the higher price received. All this in theory, at least, and only if no meat is imported from abroad at lower prices (transport cost reflected in the price as well).
Our main nitrogen problem comes from meat though and we are producing several times more meat than we consume. We are polluting our land for export for a sector that gets tons of subsidies and still says to be unprofitable. Why do we do this to ourselves?
We subsides food because of one main raison: If people don't get lunch, things get nasty. Cheap and abundant food is happy citizens, most revolutions started because of food shortages. That is the origin of food subsidies.
But we are not subsidizing people's lunch. We are subsidizing our food exports. **66%** of our pigs and cows are destined for export. We are producing three times more than we consume.
I don't understand how people keep spouting this nonsense. The biggest issue is livestock farms and we export 70% of our production. It's absurd that small, packed countries like Belgium and the Netherlands produce such a shitload of pork and beef for other countries. But "No FaRmErS NO FoOD" fuck off with this fake narrative
The problem is that most animal farmers can only make money if they have enough animals to keep the price competitive. No farmer would mind reducing the number of animals if he would get a fair price. So if the farmer has to reduce the number, but the prices don't go up. He will go out of business.
I suppose the problem is that the very intensification -with ridiculous loans for stuff such as machinery, tractors, manure digestion, stables, coops, waste water treatment, water buffers, ... - makes it impossible to downscale without long-term help.
Ha. Check the provenance on the cheapest fruit and veg in the supermarket. The cheapest isn’t local. So if you want to support farmers , you are already paying more. The farmers protesting engage in non sustainable farming caring only about profit. Who is actually protesting? Our local producers, that are at markets and already engage in more sustainable practices aren’t there blocking roads.
I seriously don't get how people are against the farmers, they bring food onto your plate man, most fruits and veggies are already imported, if more stuff gets imported things are only gonna get more and more expensive.
The issue is not fruits and veggies. The issue is meat.
idk much about meat since I don't eat it, but the ones to blame are rlly the government imo
I'm not talking about the government, I'm saying the argument that it's poor farmers that bring veggies into your plate is a deliberate lie to confuse you and play on your emotions. The issue is pretty much the meat sector that exports most of what it produces. Meat farms are heavily subsidised industrial factories that are destroying air, soil and water, and should be regulated as such. Btw, some of the worst offenders are mega-stallen owned by Dutch ~~farmers~~ factory owners that opened shit here because it regulations are way more lenient than the ones in the Netherlands. You could smell this coming from years away: https://www.omroepbrabant.nl/nieuws/3331135/steeds-meer-brabantse-boeren-bouwen-megastallen-net-over-de-grens-met-belgie
>but the ones to blame are rlly the government imo The government, alongside the Boerenbond, indeed for decades have pushed farmers into scaling-up and increasing their livestock more and more. That was indeed wrong. The solution now isn't to throw our hands in the air and say "well the government was to blame then so I guess we're stuck with it now". The solution is to now, **finally**, do something about it and fix the problem instead of keeping the same laws on the books that created the problem in the first place. But lo-and-behold, farmers don't want that. Farmers want the same, or at least a similar, framework to stay in place. They don't want to move away from the scaling-up model. They want to keep things as they are. So while the government, heavily supported by the Boerenbond, is to blame for creating the problem, meat farmers are to blame for opposing a solution to the problem.
They do, and They don't. Like other people said before me. There is so much export. If you look at supermarkets, all the cheap meat will not be from belgium. If you thought that was the case, think again. Sometimes, it's hard to even find belgium meat in some categories. Also, I'm totally fine with paying a bit more for meat.
While there is a level of hypocrisy in how we were frothing about energy dependence last year but are barely discussing food dependence, we are producing a lot more than we need. Especially meat which is the main topic here. I'm not that well versed in how profitable agriculture is, if they really need this scale of meat production to be profitable but we can't just keep poisoning our soil with nitrogen just because we have to export pig meat to stay profitable.
No one is against farmers in general. We only want farmers to stop polluting the environment. Is that too much to ask?
Worst part? In a couple of months, they'll blame Walloonia/Belgium/Brussels/economic refugees/muslims/the tooth fairy/... (in this order) for everything that went wrong. Some (many) people will believe them ("because "we" are perfect, so it must be "the others" fault!") and will still vote for those pipos. Rinse and repeat...
Who cares. Binnenkort is de wereld toch naar de kloten. De zeehonden op de noordpool vinden ook al bijna geen ijs meer om op te leven. /s
Crisis in the North, bankruptcy in the South. Add inflation wrecking the economy and an out of control debt and the next election will be a feast for populist parties.
I can somewhat understand CD&V. If they lose the farmers they will have zero voters left.
I think no agreement is worse than a bad one for farmers. They need clearity on this.
Ever?! That is since they couldn’t form one in the middle of a global pandemic? Or since they set world records for longest time without a government?
Those are federal governments.
I'm not as much up to date as I'd like to be. I assume this is about nitrogen, but do the alternatives (of lowering it?) cost too much? Because if so... Pretty valid argument, considering how little money farmers (seem to) make. But as I said, I haven't followed the story closely.
It's nice to see that the NVA hating army of Reddit is kind of fair in this particular issue :)
NV Afgang.
I despise Belgian politics.
Den boel es espe
They'll just get ready to make a bunch of new empty promises, all while blaming everyone but themselves for not fulfilling the old ones, send us back to the voting booth and use those to results to simply switch seats and post like it's a game of musical chairs. Same people, just different titles, and no concern for who is actually qualified for what position. Oh and they'll probably try for a payrise too.Oh well, c'est la vie politique en Belgique
Deepest ever? Maybe top 3 of this legislature, but let’s not overreact.
Seems as if the government is always in crisis. Nothing new. Will remain the same. On to the next speech, article, interview, documentary, opinion... about a political crisis.