The interests of Schiphol Amsterdam Airport and the Dutch economy are not synonymous, even though Schiphol tries to make us believe that.

It was quite conspicuous news last week, except for the fact that it wasn’t… for all those who know the situation around Schiphol Amsterdam Airport:

Due to the deployment of new European calculation rules for noise pollution, the airport was allowed to grow with a significant number of slots per annum. At least, according to an environment effects report (i.e. MER in Dutch), researched and published on behalf of the airport itself. The following article is from news broadcaster NOS:

Growth airport is demonstrably possible

Additional annual growth in flight movements is demonstrably possible for Schiphol, according to the airport itself. The calculations show, according to Schiphol, that it is possible to grow “in a sustainable and safe way”, as the airport is now well under the agreed norm of noise pollution.

The data are mentioned in the Environmental Effect Report (MER), that Schiphol had to publish,commissioned by the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Environment (Ministry of I&M).

Today Schiphol presented the data to representatives of the neighbouring people, officials from the region and the airtransport industry. Based upon the conclusions in this report, these parties all hope to make agreements about the growth of Schiphol after 2020.

According to the MER, the number of houses that is dealing with excessive noise pollution has since 2015 increased to 11,000 from 10,100 (based upon the forecasted 500,000 flights per year). The agreed norm was 13,600, so the noise pollution would remain 19% below this very norm.

And according to the same calculations the number of people that suffers from serious noise pollution, caused by air transport, is 117,500. That is well below the norm of 166,500. Based upon these figures, Schiphol concluded that there is ample room for growth.

I truly hope that these data and the new EU calculation methods used in this MER report are indeed reliable and trustworthy, even though I have my doubts. Nevertheless, during the last decades, there was always one constant factor in the economic, political and legal treatment of Schiphol Amsterdam Airport:

“Schiphol shall grow. Always and eternally. It does not matter how it grows, as long as it grows. When the existing norms for safety and noise pollution hamper growth, we will use new norms or new ways of measuring pollution. Whatever. It. Takes. 

When inhabitants of the region around Schiphol complain, they will be shut up with money, beads and mirrors. Or we will make them suffer in the court of law.

If business people and non-related companies have different plans for the building ground surrounding Schiphol, we will start expropriation procedures based upon safety constraints, pollution constraints or whatever we will come up with. The Dutch government will always be Schiphol’s henchman-of-last-resort, in case the sh*t hits the fan. Schiphol will win! Period!” 

Yet, the state secretary for Infrastructure & Environment, Sharon Dijksma, was not pleased with the conclusions of the MER Report presented by Schiphol, which she declared to be premature. But not for the reason that Schiphol’s conclusions about the environmental effects or the noise pollution were wrong or fouled. 

No, she was rather worried about premature conclusions by the Dutch people regarding that other “hobby project to release Schiphol from excess travellers”, Lelystad Airport.

Lelystad Airport, which is currently developed from being a local airport for private “hobby” planes into an international airport to be opened in 2019 and mainly focussed at the handling of holiday charter planes, is meant to be an overflow valve for Schiphol. 

By taking away the “cheapskate” charter flights from Schiphol towards Lelystad, Schiphol itself will get more room for the cherished growth of the lucrative and prestigious transit flights. So they think. And the Dutch government thinks this as well.

This was the reason that State Secretary Dijksma was not amused (the following thoughts of her are written by me): 

What if the world would think that the whole Lelystad Airport was not necessary after all?! Or even worse, that it would be a “dead on arrival”, waste of money project?! Hated by the charter companies (its future clients) and hated by the people in the surrounding, rural areas, who would now suffer from excess noise pollution and exhaust pollution in their nature-laden living space.

That would be bad news, wouldn't it...?!

Het Financieele Dagblad wrote this about it:

Sharon Dijksma reacted to the boasting of Schiphol about future growth possibillities in a parliamentary debate:”Why now? It is thoughtless to do this now! This paints a picture that Schiphol can grow eternally and that Lelystad is not necessary”. She suggested in the debate that the MER was not ready yet and lacked the cohesion with other topics.

State secretary Dijksma reacts here like a small child of which a favorite toy is taken away by its parents:

• Not a word by State Secretary Dijksma about the fact that the increased noise and air pollution of continued growth for Schiphol is bad for the people, living in North and South Holland. Or the people living in the take off and landing zone of Lelystad Airport, as a matter of fact.
• Not a word about the enhanced safety risks that Schiphol’s growth has to offer for the region and the airport itself. Or that Lelystad Airport poses.
• No, everything she states is about the risk that her hobby project “Lelystad Airport” would turn into a (financial) disaster. A monstrosity that nobody really likes, but that is built anyway [which it very well might be after all – EL]. 

This proves the eternal shortsightedness of the Dutch government, in case of Schiphol and its growth figures.

The fact that Schiphol has already some serious issues with the current influx of flights and passengers, is not incorporated in the overly optimistic growth plans for the following ten years. Nevertheless, the writing is already on the wall, according to Het FD:

Overloaded parkings, endless queues and dozens of passengers missing their flights. The start of the May holiday was chaotically at Schiphol. And it stays crowded: the coming months the airport expects about 100 peak days with 200,000 passengers each.

This snippet is symptomatic for the situation at Schiphol, where the passenger, security and safety infrastructure can’t keep up with the excessive ambitions of the management.

At this moment the airport is seemingly experiencing “peak load”, which makes it nearly impossible to reach further growth without taking some drastical countermeasures to reduce overcrowdedness.

And there is more: The Netherlands is one of the most densely crowded countries in the world and already has a vast airtraffic network. The addition of Lelystad Airport and the tens of thousands of flight movements this will cause eventually, is already a conundrum for the Air Traffic Control. 

Addition of roughly 20,000 extra flights per year on Schiphol itself, on top of that, will make this conundrum extremely hard to solve and will inevitably lead to enhanced safety risks and more ‘near misses’ in the air, not even to think about worse incidents with casualties.

That Schiphol and The Netherlands have only experienced a few flight disasters with more than 10 casualties (f.i. the Bijlmer disaster in 1992 or the Turkish Airlines accident in 2008) is probably rather a question of sheer luck than of strategic insights and appropriate counter measures.

Airplane accidents tend to follow statistics in the end. The higher the number of flight movements is, the higher is the risk for fatal accidents. And fatal accidents in densely populated areas carry more risk for elevated levels of casualties than in scarsely populated areas. There is no bargaining with such basic statistical rules.

Nevertheless, Schiphol is – together with Rotterdam World Port – targeted as mainport in The Netherlands by the Dutch government. 

That means that Schiphol is considered a strategic asset, with respect to labour supply, international political and business relations and economic growth. In the past, government officials have decided that Schiphol should be a pivot point for international air traffic (transit flights) and (as such) one of the largest and most importants airports in Europe.

That the competition with the airports of Dubai and Istanbul for transit flights is almost impossible to beat (due to vast state subsidies in their host countries) and that The Netherlands is probably not fit for hosting such a crowded airport, does not matter.

Schiphol is paramount for the Dutch economy – so they say – and its growth should not be hampered at all, or else… 

This is an almost religious belief among goverment officials, lobby groups and Schiphol itself. And Lelystad Airport, which will partially destroy a few of the most beautiful nature areas in The Netherlands with its strongly increased air and noise pollution, is part of this scheme.

Exactly this makes it nearly impossible to have a fair discussion about the pros and cons of such dense air traffic in The Netherlands, as it always falls on deaf ears with the government and the lobby groups. That is… until another catastrophic air accident with dozens of casualties occurs. Let us hope that does not happen.

Until such a dramatic event occurs in reality, it is time to reconsider the desirability of such heavy airtraffic in such a densely populated country, as someone has to do that and draw his conclusions. 

Schiphol’s interests are not synonymous to the interests of the Dutch population, even though Schiphol is trying to make us believe that.

But that person will probably not be part of the Dutch government. Slim chance… 

Viva chancellor Angela Merkel! Or how the textbook example of a ‘dull-ish’ and down-to-earth politician can feel like a relief in the thunderstorm of political roosters.

Well life has a funny way of sneaking up on you

When you think everything's okay and everything's going right

Alanis Morisette – Ironic

“Isn’t that ironic?!”

I had to think about this ironic... ehm iconic song by the Canadian singer-songwriter Alanis Morisette, when I read in the newspaper that Moscow “was worried about the bellicose rhetoric between North Korea and the United States and considered it to be ‘over the top’”.

The given fact that the government of Vladimir Putin – who is of course the conqueror of Crimea and an alleged plotter against Ukraine and the US as well as a genuine firebrand – suddenly sounded so worried about the aggressive rhetoric between North Korea and the United States was indeed quite ironic. 

In fact, it seemed like the response of a juvenile pyromaniac that “he didn’t expect the house to be set on fire, after having played with matches in his room”.

Nevertheless, it seems a fact that the Russian former secret agent and kindred spirit of Niccoló Macchiavelli, president Vladimir Putin is indeed deeply worried about the outcome of this vocal brawl between the two utterly immature hyperbullies: president Donald Trump of the United States and president Kim Jong Un of North Korea and their host of thermonuclear toys and missiles.

And that is definitely a fact to be concerned about:

"Moscow is deeply concerned by an escalation of tensions on the Korean peninsula related to an exchange of rather rude statements replete with threats," President Vladimir Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

"Moscow still calls on all interested parties to display restraint so as not to provoke this escalation even further," Peskov said, reiterating Russia's position that the problem surrounding the North's nuclear programme should be settled through negotiations only.

On Tuesday, US president Donald Trump used his maiden address to the UN General Assembly to warn "Rocket Man" Kim that he will "totally destroy" North Korea if it threatens the United States or its allies.

In a rare personal attack published hours after Washington announced the tougher sanctions, Kim said Trump was "mentally deranged" and will "pay dearly" for his threat to destroy his country.

And the mild-grumpy Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov ‘did his two cents’ in a separate statement about the mounting tensions between the US and North Korea:

“Unfortunately, the rhetoric in Washington and Pyongyang is now starting to go over the top,” Lavrov said. “We still hope and believe that common sense will prevail.”

Asked at a forum for Russian students about the risks of the stand-off escalating into armed conflict, he said: “The risks are very high, especially taking into account the rhetoric.”

“Direct threats of using force are heard... The talk (in Washington) is that there must be a preventive strike made on North Korea, while Pyongyang is threatening to carry out a missile strike on the U.S. base in Guam. These (threats) continue non-stop, and they worry us a lot.”

Of course Dmitriy Peskov, Sergei Lavrov and ultimately Vladimir Putin are right about the deteriorating situation between the US and Korea. This particular situation proves that the globe is a too dangerous arena to have ‘amateur night’ in world politics.

Kim Jong Un seems in his actions and his behaviour like a totally spoilt brat with 'half a brain', but with at the same time a god-like status in his frightened and badly beaten up home country. His closest henchmen fear his unpredictability and shiver when they hear the tales about Kim’s draconic and lethal ways of punishing his “adversaries” (i.e. mostly former confidants who fell from grace) in the recent past. 

And where his father and grandfather traditionally showed some kind of restraint out of self-defence in their behaviour against their bigger adversaries, it seems that with Kim Jong Un "all brakes are off".

And Donald Trump? He left both the Whitehouse staff and Congress in a constant mood of shock and awe with his countless untrue, hollow statements and straightforward lies. Not even to mention his extremely rude and uneloquent rhetorics at every occasion or his over-the-top and counterproductive politics and constant self-applauding. And last, but not least, with his clueless vision on both domestic and foreign affairs, in which he acts like a six year old carrying matches in a fireworks plant.

That both Trump and Kim are real amateurs in politics is something that they make clear at every occasion. And especially very recently with the overheating crisis around the North Korean nuclear program that can get out of control very easily and without a proper warning. 

From mounting mutual threats a few weeks ago, both government leaders are now promising eachother total annihilation: not as an ultimate possibility, but as an event that could occur every moment and at will. In other words, a devastating war can be started by each of both leaders when the other party does something they don’t like. Even though some of it can probably be regarded as kettle music, it is nevertheless a very dangerous situation.

As a matter of fact: even the most religiously driven and patriotic Republican exceptionalist must probably confess that “The Donald” did not exactly make the global situation safer for the United States.

The only reason that most Republicans in Congress still seem to show confidence in President Trump, is that openly forsaking their trust in him would be a moral victory for the Democrats, which they hate beyond anything else.

And many American citizens as well as people all over the world are now looking at North Korea and the United States like a rabbit looks in the emerging headlights of a car. All hope dearly that one of both leaders does not scr*w up catastrophically, but that is all what they can do about it.

What a difference then with the German ‘first lady’, Angela Merkel, whose party - the CDU/CSU (Christian-Democrat) combination - was re-elected for the fourth time in a row last weekend, effectively making her Chancellor again for the whole period or as long as she desires.

Angela Merkel has seemingly the charisma and radiant energy of a doorknob and would never be elected in a country where form goes over function, like the United States. However, her intelligence, wisdom and calm perseverance make her the ideal captain to guide the European Union ship through the highest political waves.

Her sincerity, political “Fingerspitzengefühl’ (i.e. sensitivity) and power to stay out of the spotlights in favour of her political friends, as well as the fact that she does not have real political enemies, make her the ideal, unassuming leader of the EU. The new French Président Emmanuel Macron is allowed to be the radiant “new kid on the block”, who attracts all the attention, but in the end everybody knows who is really in charge.

Angela Merkel, with her dull-ish and down to earth charisma is the ideal counterbalance for the political roosters Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un, who both have to deal with enormous egos and with the fact that they are genuine political amateurs in a time when the world dearly needs professionals.

If someone is capable to pull the fuse out of the North Korean powder keg, it must be Angela Merkel, even though she showed an open disliking for the blunt and rude Donald Trump. 

Although Angela Merkel is not considered to be a party in this dangerous conflict, she could perhaps use her influence with Chinese president Xi Jinping to force him into a more leading role in this conflict. And Xi Jinping might be the only one to whom Kim Jong Un would listen in the end.

And when Merkel does so, she will find Russian president Vladimir Putin at her side. Vladimir Putin has definitely fought his own battles on several chess boards during the last few years and he is a ruthless leader with only his own goals and interests in sight. Nevertheless, he will not be happy about the current political instability: “It is nice to create some havoc in Europe every now and then, but I can’t use a full-blown global war”, is probably what Putin thinks.

And then the intelligent Merkel is a natural ally for him, who knows her own (country's) limitations and recognizes the enormous interests that Europe has in Russia and vice versa (exports of semi-manufactured goods and consumer products and imports of oil and natural gas(!)).

So even though Angela Merkel is not totally uncontroversial in Europe and made a few errors too in the past, we must be glad with this sensitive and sensible political powerhouse in Berlin. She is masterful at both containing the deteriorating domestic political situation (e.g. at this moment the (extreme) rightwing Alternative für Deutschland being elected as third party in Germany) and the outright flammable world politics of this moment.

And that is good to know with the current ongoing thunderstorm between the political roosters Kim and Trump... Viva Angela Merkel!