Supermarkets groan under farmers’ actions, but Schiphol battle doesn’t come

You get used to it at Schiphol Airport: military police with machine guns in the departures hall and armored off-road vehicles in front of the gate to deter potential terrorists. But today, two heavy duty shovels have been added, dark blue painted bulldozers in front of the arrivals hall, to push all the angry farmers with a tractor and all out of the driveway. A species Robot Wars on the A4. A sergeant next to his shovel: “I have no idea who is going to win this. Never tried.’

Monday was the day the authorities decided to take a stand against the radical farmers. To clarify: so far and no further. Previously, police opted for de-escalation: stand down, abandon equipment and understand conversations with tractor drivers, even as they blocked highways and attacked drivers’ homes. Today, the government is drawing a line.

It’s not about blocking supermarket distribution centers. Farmers could do their own work there, which would cause financial damage to the shops. Albert Heijn and Picnic also canceled thousands of orders. Government boundaries are apparently at infrastructure such as Schiphol Airport and the Port of Rotterdam. If necessary, in addition to shovels, the Constabulary also has tracked armored vehicles with a bulldozer blade, and a revolutionary 62-ton 1,500 hp engineer tank can be borrowed from the Army.

The atmosphere is calm

Today was also the day of the canceled Battle of Schiphol. Many travelers (and journalists) have booked a very expensive room in an airport hotel as a precaution, have taken the train or even cycled. In the latter case, it was clearly visible that the Royal Netherlands Marechaussee, responsible for security at Schiphol, had drawn a wide circle around the airport: four-wheelers waited along the supply roads to block the tractors, concrete blocks had been placed on cycle paths. A guard who has been waiting for hours: “I let them come now. That angry farmers chose Monday to block supermarket chain distribution centres, highways, the Media Park and a waste-handling company spread across the country, makes tactical sense. The government cannot put executors everywhere.

On an upper floor of the Queen Máxima barracks next to Schiphol, the large-scale and special actions staff of the Marechaussee discusses the situation around five airports in the country. On a screen, the actions of farmers and fishermen appear as colored squares, and the position of friendly units as numbers. In Driebergen, the national police has set up a similar headquarters. “The situation around Schiphol is calm,” an intelligence officer said. “There are supposed to be eighty tractors on the way to Rotterdam airport, but I cannot confirm that.” A colleague: “Well, we had seen eighty tractors. The atmosphere is calm during the security briefing, the only point of concern: the stubbornness of the Maréchaussée.

“How long will this deployment last?” asks an officer. Should I cancel all classes? And what about Navy Days? Commander Peter de Bruin, a major at the head of the table: “Let’s not go cauliflower. We must not make it bigger than it is. He then says of stubbornness: “We have enough people. But if it happens more often, it will come at the expense of other things.

De-escalation and enforcement are not opposites

Among travelers to Schiphol, there is little understanding for the farmers’ campaigns. “It’s bad luck for them, but there’s no other way,” says a lady en route to New Zealand. As a safety measure, she came to Schiphol by train. “The environment cannot support this way of farming.” She acknowledges that flying to New Zealand is not good either. — I looked: the journey takes six weeks by boat. A 39-year-old ICT specialist on his way to Madrid for work thinks farmers are going too far. “It’s good to protest, but don’t let it bother your countrymen. What do I have to do with their nitrogen emissions?

According to professor of public order and risk management Otto Adang (Police Academy), de-escalation and enforcement are not opposites, but two sides of the same coin. “Every teacher or educator knows that.” Threatening and intimidating is different from protesting, according to the researcher. “Then you cross a border. This also applies to blocking vital infrastructure. At such a time, it is important, says Adang, that the government shows that one cannot escape everything. “It’s a balancing act between empathy and setting boundaries. If you move too slowly, you risk social outrage; if you act too harshly, the farmer can present himself as a victim and increase his mobilizing power. The farmer also balances, argues Adang, because overly harsh actions can lead to a loss of social support.

In front of Schiphol, the chief of the guard and his men wait in vain for the arrival of the tractors. He does not expect that there will ever be a collision between the shovel and the tractor. “We’ll just join them, block the road and arrest the driver.” Also, military police don’t expect a farmer to risk his prized tractor, uninsured on the highway, in a standoff. “He just needs this thing the next day.”