Netherlands may reverse motorway speed limit cut which ‘barely reduces emissions’

The Netherlands is considering reversing an unpopular speed limit imposed because of EU climate targets, after a study showed it barely lowered nitrogen emissions.

Geert Wilders won October’s general election, but has since been mired in lengthy coalition talks, as the country’s four biggest political parties struggle to reach agreement.

One emerging area of possible consensus is revoking a 2019 cut in the motorway speed limit from 130kmh (81mph) to 100kmh (62mph).

“The reason why we are hearing about this is that it is probably the only thing all four parties can agree on,” one Dutch official told The Telegraph.

The old speed limit was slashed when Dutch courts ordered the government to cut air pollution, and in particular nitrogen emissions, to meet EU net zero targets.

Talk of restoring the old limit has been given impetus by a study that showed the lower limit, which only applies between 6am and 7pm, reduced nitrogen emissions by at most 0.2 per cent, on paper.

The potential coalition partners are reported to have submitted questions to the ministries concerned about changing the law, after the current caretaker government ruled out lowering the limit in a debate last month.

“We cannot afford that luxury,” said Christianne van der Wal, the outgoing nitrogen minister. “The nitrogen bath is so full that it can’t take even a small additional drop.”

Mr Wilders, dubbed the “Dutch Trump”  has called for the Netherlands to leave the Paris climate agreement, and the other parties are also keen to roll back the measure.

Mark Rutte, who is still caretaker prime minister, said it was a “rotten measure” as he imposed the new limit for years ago at the behest of the courts. The cut put the Netherlands alongside Cyprus with the lowest motorway limits in the EU.

The Dutch nitrogen crisis halted new construction projects in the midst of a housing crisis. It led Mr Rutte to propose compulsory farm buyouts to reduce nitrogen emissions.

That precipitated a string of tractor protests that inspired similar populist uprisings against EU green rules across Europe.

In March 2023, the BBB, a Dutch farmer’s party, won a shock landslide victory in regional elections which had become a referendum on Mr Rutte, the leader of the conservative VVD.

The government fell soon afterwards in a row over migration policy and Mr Rutte, the longest serving Prime MInister in Dutch history, announced he would not run again.

A knife-edge election

In the run-up to November’s general election, the BBB lost ground to a new “radical centrist” party led by Pieter Omtzigt, a campaigning centre-Right MP.

In a knife-edge election, Mr Wilders, the leader of the hard-Right Freedom Party, won a shock victory.

Dilan Yesilgoz, Mr Rutte’s successor as VVD leader and his hardline former justice minister, had led the polls with a campaign in which she vowed to crack down on migration and limit family reunification for asylum seekers, before losing ground to Mr Wilders.

The VVD came a narrow third behind an alliance of Left-wing and Green parties led by Frans Timmermans, the former commissioner in charge of climate change, which is not part of talks to form the Right-wing coalition.

Political reporter Leendert Beekman told Dutch radio that the timing of the leak was suspicious, so soon after Mr Wilders had quit one round of talks on migration in frustration.

“It seems like a distraction from what really matters: asylum and migration,” he said.