Make ‘Roosendaal’ (Nl) Belgian

Roosendaal, Doel – Closing a nuclear plant, building a new goods railway line and turning the Antwerp-Rotterdam harbour area into Europe’s biggest Green Port: Greens from the Dutch-Flemish Schelde Mouth region have started or announced a list of projects that will keep them busy for years, during a joint bus and bicycle tour from Sas van Gent to Baarle Nassau. But their most original claim might be the one Peter Uytdehage, a Green alderman in Roosendaal, proposed: make the railway station of Roosendaal (Nl, some 10 kilometers from the Belgian border) a Belgian station by integrating it into the Belgian Railway Network. Click here for more pictures.

 

Turnstile

Uytdehage made his claim in front of the station and a busload of Greens from Zwijndrecht, Antwerp and Amsterdam. His demand is not as absurd as it might seem: Maastricht already has been integrated in the NMBS-SNCB network, which gave the south Limburg town during weekdays an hourly intercity service to Brussels. A comparable connection to Belgian cities would be vital for Roosendaal, Uytdehage explained. The West-Brabant town, a thriving turf village until the Eighty Years’ war put that trade to an end, owes much to the railway line Brussels-Amsterdam that was opened over a century ago, the politician explained, which saved it from oblivion making it into a turnstile between Belgium and the Netherlands.  

The new high-speed connection Brussels-Amsterdam, passing through Breda some 25 kilometers to the east, will put an end to all that. People from Roosendaal, West-Brabant and the province of Zeeland will be left with the hourly stopper train to Antwerp – which adds considerably to travel time, or have to travel through Breda – slower and much more expensive, and thus be pushed into cars if no alternative is given.  

 

 

Sas van Gent: Bio Base Europe

The station scoop was only the fourth of a chain of activities, which had started in the early hours in Sas van Gent, where a Belgian bus was decorated with posters of GroenLinks and Groen, to offer a background for a speech by Leen Harpe, chair of the Greens in the provincial council of Zeeland, earlier that day with the presentation in Sas van Gent along the canal from Gent to Terneuzen, of Bio Base Europe – a joint initiative of Bio Park Terneuzen and Bio Energy Valley in Gent, for a bio refinery plant (in Gent, Be) and a corresponding training centre (in Terneuzen, Nl) at each side of the waterway. It still is only a pilot, said Leen Harpe, chair of the Greens in the provincial council, granted a 21 million euros subsidy from the EU. But when it succeeds it may become the first proof of the fundamental transition from a competitive and resource consuming harbour exploitation to the sustainable future described in A Green New Deal for the Schelde Rhine Delta policy, a co-production of Flemish and Dutch Greens. 

Zwijndrecht: Green island in Chemical Sea

Willy Minnebo, major of Zwijndrecht and the bus’ second host, has a somewhat awkward task: as one of Flanders’ two Green Mayors he heads a community tucked away between the city of Antwerp and its ever-extending harbour, and invaded by motorways, heavy industry and chemical plants. Those cannot simply be done away with, Minnebo explained, because thousands of people depend on them for transport and work. 

Still, the local Greens can make a change. They have introduced a public transport subsidy enabling under twelve’s and over sixties to travel freely on tram and bus and all others to travel at 25% of the costs. They have built the new town hall according to the latest energy standards and are changing the rules for building permits accordingly. And they are engaged in talks with industry about tougher waste and emission standards. One point to improve, alderwoman Irene Hoppe said, is the wastewater, which, at the moment, is partly evacuated in tank lorries instead of being treated by a local purification installation.  

Doel: One Nuisance Less? 

The second stop was the nuclear plant of Doel, a nuclear plant approaching its end of life and a long time battle horse of the Flemish Greens. Situated just a few miles from the previous stop and as many from the Dutch border, it proved an ideal third target. When in government the Flemish Greens had managed Belgium to announce it’s nuclear withdrawal. But that promise seems to have been forgotten since they dropped out in 2004. Therefore two politicians from Antwerp, European candidate Wouter van Besien and Heerlen/EGP-supporters’ coordinator Luc Lamote, found five minutes of courage to make a first step, witnessed by a hastily alarmed guard. 

A12 Border: Launching Line 11

At this former customs post, Greens from Zeeland and Flanders started work on ‘Line 11′, a goods railway connecting the harbours of Antwerp and Rotterdam. At last, because the line has been talked about for years.

It is a cheaper and environmentally less harmful alternative to the Iron Rhine goods railway through precious nature in Limburg, they argue, because it connects Antwerp to the Ruhrgebiet via the now under-used Betuwe Line, which was built for that purpose. It also transfers goods transport from road to rail – which will improve the poor air quality in the region and will considerably reduce the nuisance and risks for the towns and villages in the region, which now see dangerous goods being transported straight through their centers. And if an extra branch to the province of Zeeland is built, the harbour of Flushing will get a direct connection to Antwerp. 

 

Kranendonk: Greens invade Village Fete 

More Flemish-Dutch cooperation is what is called for, says local councilor Philip Peeters, a member of both Groen! and GroenLinks: at the moment the Flemish care for peoples’ respiratory systems health stops at the border: whereas the Belgian part of the harbour area has a good coverage of measuring points, the Dutch part only counts one. Emissions however penetrate both. 

 

Baarle Nassau: Groen! – GroenLinks: 3-1

Two teams of cyclists had set out to meet the bus in Baarle Nassau, a Belgian ‘enclave’ on Dutch territory: one from Tilburg (Nl) and a second from Turnhout (Be) and surrounding villages. The Flemish largely outnumbered the Dutch, basically because in Flanders the European elections coincide with the regional ones, which raise a lot more participation.

Together they were well over fifty to fill up the terrace of the pub De Verboden Vrucht (The Forbidden Fruit), whose tap is on Belgian territory and part of the guests drink in Dutch, to listen to Wouter van Besien, a European candidate for Groen! who praised the values of cooperation as opposed to competition. ‘But I make one exception’ he said: ‘Sports’. And then invited Niels van den Berge, a European candidate for GroenLinks, for a game of table football. Van Besien, who had been bussing to Baarle whereas Van den Berge had cycled the twenty-five kilometers, had something to make up. Which he did gloriously. Filmed by the regional television channel RTL, with the game table placed exactly ON the border, he beat his Dutch fellow candidate with a convincing 3 to 1.