The Liberal Alliance has not been clear enough about the party's green policy. And that probably cost it votes in the capital area and in Aarhus, where the party went down in the elections on March 24 despite progress nationwide. This is the analysis from the party's group chairman and long-time profile Ole Birk Olesen.
He will now hold a new "green super-speakership", which the party calls the spokesperson for new growth in the countryside. This was decided at a group meeting on Friday. The rapporteurship will bring together the areas of environment, food and rural areas.
The party defines "new growth in the countryside" as green and sustainable growth that makes rural areas attractive and can replace the old growth in the form of "more and more pigs and more and more manure spreading".
- All of us who want Denmark to be a greener place with more nature, without predatory exploitation of inland waters and groundwater, have an obligation to present our visions in such a way that people who live in rural areas can see themselves in the vision, says Ole Birk Olesen.
Therefore, the party wants to liberalize the Planning Act and the Agricultural Act, among other things, in order to create "new settlements and businesses in the countryside".
- It must not only be about what is no longer allowed to be done in the countryside, but that it will also be about what is allowed in the countryside in the future, but which is currently prohibited by law, says it.
The environment and especially drinking water in Denmark ended up being a big part of the latest election campaign. Ole Birk Olesen is "relatively convinced" that the Liberal Alliance was not "clear enough in our way of talking about our green ideas and visions".
Lack of clarity is to blame for decline in big cities
He also believes that the party's lack of clarity on the environment may have had an impact on the party's decline in the capital area and Aarhus.
- I think that over the course of a few election periods we have gradually been quite clear that we also see ourselves as a party that wants the green and wants nature, but I'm not sure that it has seeped into the entire population and that everyone perceives it that way, says Ole Birk Olesen.
Two days after election day, Weekendavisen published an interview with LA chairman Alex Vanopslagh, which was conducted before election day. Here, Alex Vanopslagh called the debate about clean drinking water "pure hysteria", because "we have clean drinking water" and not "Southern European conditions".
Ole Birk Olesen agrees with his party chairman. When it was said during the election campaign that you can't drink the water from the tap, "it all became very hysterical".
- It is not hysteria that we should worry about what we are spreading on the ground today from both agriculture and industry, so that the groundwater that is formed in these years, and which we will probably only drink in 50 years, is also good groundwater. We should pay attention to that, and we do.
After the general election, there is now a majority among the parties that in the election campaign advocated a national spraying ban to protect the groundwater. During the election campaign, the Liberal Alliance said that the challenges should be handled in the green tripartite. But Ole Birk Olesen is not opposed to a national spraying ban now.
- We are open to the idea of spraying being banned in various places. We got a little lost in technical discussions about how it should happen and in what order in relation to something else instead of being very clear that we think that what is needed should be done so that the groundwater in 50 years is also good groundwater.
- We must also remedy that here after the election.
/ritzau/
Text, graphics, images, sound, and other content on this website are protected under copyright law. DK Medier reserves all rights to the content, including the right to exploit the content for the purpose of text and data mining, cf. Section 11b of the Copyright Act and Article 4 of the DSM Directive.
Customers with IP agreements/major customer agreements may only share Danish Offshore Industry articles internally for the purpose of handling specific cases. Sharing in connection with specific cases refers to journaling, archiving, or similar uses.
Customers with a personal subscription/login may not share Danish Offshore Industry articles with individuals who do not themselves have a personal subscription to Danish Offshore Industry.
Any deviation from the above requires written consent from DK Medier.
