PBL: kabinet moet scherpere keuzes maken voor toekomstig ruimtegebruik
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FOTO ERIC BRINKHORST
Het kabinet moet scherpere keuzes maken bij het benutten van ruimte, wil het in de toekomst genoeg plek hebben voor wonen, werken, landbouw en natuur. Dat stelt het Planbureau voor de Leefomgeving (PBL) donderdag in een advies over de Ontwerpnota Ruimte, op verzoek van het kabinet.
De Ontwerpnota moet uiteindelijk leiden tot de definitieve Nota Ruimte, een groot en belangrijk beleidsdocument waarin staat hoe Nederland er de komende decennia uit moet gaan zien. Volgens het PBL is de Ontwerpnota zoals die er nu ligt een goed begin, maar moet het plan op een aantal punten flink worden aangescherpt.
Zo stelt de Ontwerpnota dat de ruimte in Nederland schaars en waardevol is, maar wordt er voor alle sectoren (bijvoorbeeld wonen, defensie en bedrijvigheid) en daarbovenop uitbreiding van het energienetwerk samen nog altijd meer ruimte geclaimd dan er in Nederland te vergeven valt.
De vraag of het ook met minder kan wordt nauwelijks gesteld, zo concluderen de onderzoekers: „Het is essentieel de bestaande ruimte efficiënter te gebruiken en beter te onderbouwen waar meer nodig is.”
‘Natuuruitbreiding is noodzakelijk’
Ook mist er in de Ontwerpnota op sommige punten volgens het PBL samenhang. Zo staat er bijvoorbeeld woningbouw geschetst op plekken waar nu juist weinig mensen wonen. Dat is riskant, zo stelt PBL-programmaleider David Hamers in een toelichting: „Woningbouw moet aansluiten bij de vraag. Mensen hebben woningen nodig met werk, recreatiemogelijkheden en voorzieningen.”
De onderzoekers missen ook een „samenhangende visie” tussen energie-infrastructuur en zaken als wonen, bedrijvigheid en de natuur. Kortgezegd: als je nieuwe een woonwijk wilt aanleggen, moet daar ook energievoorziening naartoe – en andersom heeft grootschalige infrastructuur op zichzelf weinig zin als er in de buurt geen doel voor is.
Het PBL is verder kritisch op de uitzonderingspositie voor de landbouw, die onder demissionair minister Keijzer (Ruimtelijke Ordening, BBB) werd toegevoegd aan een eerdere versie van de Ontwerpnota. Keijzer vindt dat het behalen van Europese natuurdoelen niet ten koste mag gaan van landbouwgrond.
De aanname dat er op bestaande landbouwgrond ook al veel gedaan kan worden om die natuurdoelen te behalen, trekt het PBL in twijfel: dit zal „niet voldoende” zijn om aan de Europese richtlijn te voldoen. Uitbreiding van natuurgebieden blijft volgens de onderzoekers nodig. „Om de natuurdoelen te bereiken is het noodzakelijk dat agrarisch grondgebruik wordt aangepast.”
Om de strenge Europese doelen voor bodem- en waterkwaliteit te halen, moet het kabinet concreter maken wat het daaraan wil doen, zo stelt het PBL. In de huidige Ontwerpnota blijft de verbetering van de waterkwaliteit nu onderbelicht. Het idee dat er bij ruimtelijke ordeningskwesties als eerste wordt gekeken naar de bodem- en waterkwaliteit, moet volgens de onderzoekers sterker terugkomen.
Die conclusie is opmerkelijk omdat het uitgangspunt ‘op water en bodem sturend’ onder het huidige demissionaire kabinet juist werd losgelaten. Minister Keijzer, die erg begaan is met het versoepelen en afschaffen van regels, liet daarnaast ook lokale regels los die gemeenten dwingen om eerst binnen de bebouwde grenzen te bouwen.
US officials tried to lobby against Marine Le Pen election ban, French judge says
Magali Lafourcade says the two envoys were convinced the far-right leader’s corruption trial had been political
A French magistrate has said two Trump administration emissaries approached her seeking to lobby against an election ban on the French far-right leader Marine Le Pen.
Magali Lafourcade, the secretary general of France’s human rights commission (CNCDH), an independent body that advises the government, told Agence France-Presse (AFP) she had reported the content of the meeting to the French foreign ministry immediately, fearing a potential “manipulation of the public debate in France”.
Confirming comments she made to France 5 TV,Lafourcade said she had been very surprised by the tenor of her discussion with the US advisers in Paris last May, when they steered the conversation on to French judges’ sentencing of Le Pen in 2025 after she was found guilty of the embezzlement of European parliament funds.
After a nine-week trial in Paris, judges ruled last March that Le Pen had been at the heart of an extensive and long-running fake jobs scam at the European parliament, and banned her from running for public office for five years with immediate effect.
Le Pen, 57, who leads the anti-immigration National Rally (RN), had been considered a lead contender for next year’s presidential election until her sentence. She also received a four-year prison term, with two years suspended and two to be served outside jail with an electronic bracelet. She was ordered to pay a €100,000 (£87,000) fine.
Le Pen appealed alongside 10 of the 24 party members who were convicted last year. She denied wrongdoing and is appearing in court in Paris on a fresh trial as she seeks to overturn her conviction and sentence. She told the court on Wednesday that she had always acted in good faith.
Lafourcade told AFP she had met Samuel D Samson and Christopher J Anderson last May. They are advisers for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor (DRL), which is part of the Department of State. She said they had been seeking “elements to support a theory that could have, perhaps, served to support a disinformation or manipulation of the public debate in France”.
Lafourcade said she had tried to explain the French judicial process, but that the two men “were convinced it was a political trial that aimed to remove [Le Pen] from the presidential race or to place a ban on her for purely political reasons”.
She said they felt Le Pen had been unfairly treated and was victim of a “political conviction”, and that they had sought elements to support that view.
Lafourcade, who is not involved in the Le Pen case, said she was troubled because this was not the type of conversation that “should happen with allies”.
She said she had sensed that it could be seen as a form of interference, so immediately reported the conversation to the foreign ministry, “which is something I never do, as we are an independent institution and don’t report the exchanges we have with diplomats”.
She said the foreign ministry, which has not commented, had told her it would take her report very seriously.
The state department did not respond to questions identifying Samson and Anderson as the US officials who met with Lafourcade.
In a statement, it said the “trip in question occurred nearly eight months ago and we discussed these false rumors publicly at the time. This is old news.”
“[DRL] officials routinely hold productive meetings across Europe with a wide range of government officials and civil society representatives to address concerns regarding censorship, democratic backsliding and other human rights issues,” the statement added.
Samson, a recent college graduate appointed as senior adviser under the new Trump administration, had recommended last year that his bureau’s leadership use funds earmarked by Congress for foreign assistance to support projects including the resettlement of Afrikaners to the US and Le Pen’s legal defence. It is not clear whether the DRL’s leadership adopted his recommendations.
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Samson, one of a number of young conservatives to rise under the Trump administration, reflects the White House’s changing priorities for foreign assistance. He wrote a controversial post on the Department of State’s Substack page titled The Need for Civilizational Allies in Europe, in which he also criticised the labelling of the far-right Alternative für Deutschland as an extremist organisation, saying this “environment also restricts Europe’s elections”.
Le Pen’s sentence prompted anger among political figures on the international populist right. Trump called it a “witch-hunt” by “European leftists”.
Le Pen had attacked what she called a “tyranny of judges” who she said wanted to stop her running in a presidential race she said she could otherwise win.
She told La Tribune Dimanche this month that whatever the outcome, her party would dominate and its “ideas will survive”. If she is unable to run for the presidency for a fourth time next year, she will be replaced by her young protege and party president, Jordan Bardella.
The German magazine Der Spiegel has reported that Trump officials held internal discussions about sanctioning French prosecutors and judges involved in last year’s trial and sentencing of Le Pen. The Department of State said it was a “fake story”.
The president of the Paris judicial court, Peimane Ghaleh-Marzban, said this month that any move against a French judge would “constitute an unacceptable and intolerable interference in the internal affairs of our country”.
The French government spokesperson, Maud Bregeon, said this month that there was no proof of any international interference, but that the government would remain vigilant.
Europe - bit by bit - is slowly
but certainly drawn into the right-extremist orbit of the highly racist and
fascist and hyper theocratic projects 2025 and Esther of the USA Heritage
Foundation.
So not only is Europe under serious threat of
far-reaching geo-political intruding in its internal affairs (the USA recently announced
their Greenland annexation, and brutely annexed Venezuela), but also its
freedom of political determination and independent judicial framework, has been subject to farreaching foreign interference.
Remember in the very same context, the constant mentioning by USA (and
Europe) of the "Russian meddling" with our internal politics, in
this light does appear unreservedly hypocritical at the least.
And so is by the way the very fact, that both Europe and the
USA have been protesting against the very violent Russian attack and wholesale
landgrab on the country of Ukraine, while the much more serious activities of the zionist
settler colony on Palestine territory (Umvolkung and genocide) have been
eagerly assisted (in numerous ways) both by the USA and Europe.
The world politically-speaking, is rapidly moving towards
the totalitarian abyss, and in the process environmentally further moving away from
saving our precious habitat than ever before.
