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OT | Dutch General Election 2017 | Exit Poll: Major underperformance for Wilders
- Thread starter CrunchyB
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ClosingADoor
Member
I'm hoping for ChristenUnie then, considering they at least care about "taking care of Gods creation" when it comes to climate change.
Nobody really cares I think. The economy is going fine for now, finances are back in order, unemployment down. I doubt Rutte is in much of a hurry.
Well, this coalition was not ruled out completely, they'll just explore other options next.
Good luck with that 🙄
Large Professor
Member
Totally as (I) expected. The differences on issues such immigration and integration are too big to bridge between GL and CDA/VVD.
CU is surprisingly pro-climate, like the most out of all the parties after GL and the PVDD.
CU is surprisingly pro-climate, like the most out of all the parties after GL and the PVDD.
Always-honest
Banned
Fuck... Does that mean they will continue to try without GroenLinks?
Please don't make the government too religious. It's the Netherlands for fuck's sake. We need to go on moving forward. Not backwards like most other countries.
Please don't make the government too religious. It's the Netherlands for fuck's sake. We need to go on moving forward. Not backwards like most other countries.
ClosingADoor
Member
Huh? VVD and D66 are not religious. And CDA had pretty much ruled the country half the time already and we managed to push a ton of stuff through anyway. A religious government is a non issue for the most part.
Cabaratier
Neo Member
We have way too many shitty eurosceptic, climate sceptic, personal responsibility, NIMBY people in this country.
Always-honest
Banned
Well, what are the options? CDA and CU are still in the running, technically, right?
Though i agree that CDA doesn't seem like a real religious threat to the country.
But it's still a party with a lot of backwards ideas.
Had to Google NIMBY, but yeah, haha.
We pushed stuff like euthanasia and gay marriage through when the Cda didn't rule the country, under Paars I & II.
But the VVD has made a conservative shift since then, they keep blocking legalization of weed for instance. The Cda has been stuck in the '80s and potential coalition partner SGP considers electricity to be witchcraft, I'm not thrilled with those people having any kind of power.
We desperately need some progressive parties in the coalition. People forget sometimes, but the Netherlands was a total conservative backwater country before WW2. The last few years of Rutte weren't terrible, but we were mostly treading water Imo. Some vision would be nice for a change.
ClosingADoor
Member
The religious nutjobs are the SGP and DENK at the moment. Nothing really large. CDA will go with the farmers and money.
Wasn't the whole world a conservative backwater before World War 2? Can't really compare those things. Parties like the CDA know they can't push against things like gay marriage or anything even if they wanted to, people won't accept it.
I don't really see that many progressive steps we are supposed to take here at the moment, and I don't see any party turning back time either, so I'm good with most coalitions that just take care of the finances a bit and push for some climate change and green energy initiatives.
Freeza Under The Shower
Member
But shared ideas nonetheless. Or put in different terms:
Groeten uit Brabant, ***.
edit: it's not unexpected that it didn't work out on the first round, since that's the 'hard offer' round anyway.
By modern standards, absolutely. However, even within the Europe in the interbellum, the Netherlands was quite traditionally conservative and relatively religious. This can be seen in for instance the much more limited influence of both the (far) left and far right (with the NSB gaining at most some 8% of the vote in Provincial elections, and 4% in national ones), and the complete dominance of the Christian parties (and pillars). Much has changed since, though the left by now has largely lost what influence it gained in the post-WW2 era. The far right on the other hand is much stronger now than it was then.
Yes, I like many of their ideas, but they seem insufficiently pragmatic and they hamper their own influence in that way. I agree with some of their more idealistic standpoints (on much of their environmental policies for instance), but their politicians need to realise that in this country compromise is the name of the game, and at the end of the day it's better to ameliorate some negative policies or institute some that are a small improvement than to be left out of the process entirely.
Magic Mushroom
Member
No GL is a shame. We could use a green government. But at least they stuck to their guns when it comes to immigration, that was always gonna be tough with those hardliners from VVD and CDA.
TatteredHat
Member
GroenLinks should have compromised on migration policy, bunch of idealistic fools. I'm not voting for them again if we now end up with a coalition that's much further to the right. (which seems inevitable now)
YourMaster
Member
It's their environmental policies that are most problematic I think. If they want to invest a lot in the environment, that would be a valid position, and they claim they do and have electoral success with it, but their policies there are horribly inefficient and counter productive. With a tenth of the budget they propose you can get ten times the environmental progress. I think with their international politics they are actually the dutch party that would harm the environment most of all parties.
For a small and dense country, but already clean country like the Netherlands to protect the environment it would be most effective to focus on technological development (if you invent a green technology that can be used around the world it affects 6 billion people, not 16 million) and invest the rest in the third world where they are pollution on a whole other scale with many, many more people.
I think there's a good chance in a few weeks for the groenlinks to be back at the negotiation table.
I'm a bit surprised that you did not see this coming.
Cabaratier
Neo Member
We are not a 'clean country'. https://www.cbs.nl/en-gb/news/2016/13/only-5-5-percent-of-energy-comes-from-renewable-sources
"The Netherlands performs poorly when it comes to meeting the targets as agreed upon in the EU Directive Renewable Energy for 2020. In fact, only France does worse. "
TatteredHat
Member
It could have gone either way, I was expecting them to look at the other potential coalitions and realize that compromising would be better than letting go of the steering wheel entirely.
Cabaratier
Neo Member
They possibly noticed D66 was a bigger ally than expected and then overplayed their hand vis-à-vis VVD and CDA, because they got cocky. I feel that it might just be a bit of a ruse though, and the parties will get together soon again. I really don't see what other options there are that are palatable to the 3 other parties. Ruling with the PVV seems to be (still) a no-go, and that would require another party (apart from CDA and VVD). I really don't see VVD ruling with the SGP, CDA and PVV. Replacing Groenlinks with CU and PVDA would basically replace Groenlinks with another Groenlinks, solving nothing. SP will not rule with VVD. So what options are there?
Fallout-NL
Member
Myeah, sadly a lot of the GL voters are probably ready to scream bloody murder at the first sign of compromise by Klaver.
HarryHengst
Member
Lets wait until we know more (which will probably take a few years) before blaming GL for this. I actually expect that CDA was the reason talks failed.
YourMaster
Member
I didn't mean clean as in 'clean coal'. One serious aspect of protecting the environment is to not have people throw their waste on their porches, not have farmers have their fertilizers flow into the streams and not have companies generate and or dump toxic waste into nature. We do quite well here - don't compare to other Euro countries, but to the world at large because plastic dumped on the street in Haiti flows into the same oceans as plastic from Sweden.
Energy consumption and fossil fuels are a whole different ballgame, and as a western country we do burn a lot of fossil fuels. But looking at a percentage of renewable resources is completely pointless and very shortsighted. If country A uses 3 times as much energy as country B, but has 20% from renewable sources compared to 2% that country B has, they still cause far more greenhouse gasses.
The Netherlands however is small, densely populated country, and as such has very little in land area to generate renewable energy. More is possible for sure, but the absolute percentage in total global carbon reduction is rounded down to zero, and the costs are high. Here as well the return on investment would be far, far greater if we try and help stop/reverse population growth in poor countries which pollute much more.
Let me do a concrete proposal to illustrate my point. Take these two premises:
A. Much of the third world still cooks with open fires, causing deforestation and carbon emissions. People have to travel further and further to find wood to prepare their meals. Using small wood-stoves instead of open fires would reduce the wood they require by over 80%, providing a higher standard of living, stop deforestation and reduce carbon emissions.
B. The largest renewable plan the Dutch government currently has, supported by groenlinks, is to invest billions in offshore windmills. Offshore windmills are far more expensive and require lots more maintenance(not good for environment) than land-based solutions, and they harm wild-life as well. The core of the windmills require rare earth metals that are currently only coming from China that are using horrible production methods in extracting them from their ocean floors, destroying their ocean life and even causing health issues for many natives.
Now what about if we just say 'fuck *t', don't do the windmills, but instead use part of all of the money we save to create and provide woodstoves for people in the third world who would benefit from that? The result would reduce carbon emissions by over a factor 1000, but we would drop further down that list you linked.
Baron Doggystyle von Woof
Member
True. Netherlands desperately needs a left government for once.
ClosingADoor
Member
Plus, even if we better it ourselves, the EU would give the emission rights to others, because those are traded. Let's say we drop CO2 by 10%, then Germany gets to buy that share and use it anyway. Only doing this stuff in one small country as ours is not that productive. It helps of course, but larger gains are made by having the EU lower their limits overall. We can close modern energy plants here, only to have that being picked up by a wasteful plan in Romania or wherever.
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