Dutch Government and utilities discuss Covenant progress

In November 2014 the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Economic Affairs and the utilities E.ON, Nuon, GDF Suez, EPZ and RWE signed the Covenant in respect of the improvements of the coal chain.

On the 16th December, the signing parties discussed ongoing developments in hardcoal at RWE Den Bosch and the actions taken with relevant stakeholders. Corne Boot, ‎Manager Public & Regulatory Affairs at E.ON Benelux, reports on the Stakeholder Meeting that took place.

The stakeholder event on hard coal on December 16th was a direct result of the covenant and gave room for all national and international stakeholders to address their concerns. We welcomed a broad delegation of Dutch and international NGO’s, utilities, mining companies, government and of course Bettercoal. We had an open plenary discussion on our joint goals and ambitions, looking back and looking forward. The break-out sessions gave room for deeper discussions on specialized topics.

The Dutch Minister of Foreign Trade and Development (Ms Ploumen), the Ministry of Economic Affairs and the Dutch utilities (Essent part of RWE, NUON part of Vattenfall, E.ON, soon to be Uniper and GDF SUEZ or Engie) agreed to address the concerns in society and politics and drew a (civil) coal covenant. A very Dutch polder-model way of dealing with sensitive issues which concern solid interaction between society, industry and government and look for common ground to deal with these issues.

The coal debate in Dutch politics and media focuses mainly on past human rights violations in Colombia and the transparency in the coal supply chain. A motion in parliament to create a national law which forces utilities to show coal mine-to-plant transparency was criticized by the Dutch Competition Authority on competition law and EU law basis.

In the covenant setup, the Ministry of Foreign Trade and the Dutch utilities work hand in hand to create a better situation in the coal supply chain. The covenant which was signed last year, just before the joint government-NGO-utility visit to Colombia, stresses the importance of a functioning grievance mechanism, transparency on aggregated level, engagement with NGO’s – that in its core foresees a role for Bettercoal.