#Extinction #Rebellion with thousands of empty shoes in front of the House of Representatives, criticizing emergency aid for large polluters that symbolize the lack of civil participation in the decision making on emergency aid to large polluters, such as KLM and Schiphol. The shoes and banners are from Extinction Rebellion (XR) rebels, and were placed there because they could not be present in person because of the corona crisis. This week the Spring Belly, the action week of Extinction Rebellion, would take place in The Hague.

Too little certainty for the future
Minister Hoekstra “KLM's position has been eroded recently. There was too little certainty for the future.” and then for680 million euro of shares buyingABN Amro carried out the transaction in secret on behalf of the government. It does not affect the budget, because the State acquires property in exchange for money, but it does increase public debt.

This, while KLM and Schiphol create far fewer jobs than was expected. Even without a corona crisis, many airlines operated with small margins and high debts, and higher oil prices could already be fatal. In 2019, 19 airlines went bankrupt. The stock exchange price of Air France-KLM halved in four weeks to 4.20 euros.Road 340 million in tax money.The most recent study, commissioned by minister Van Nieuwen huizen, is an update from October 2019 of a 2015 survey by Bureau Decisio. They result in 114,000 jobs that are directly connected (68,000) and indirectly (45,000) to Schiphol. The value added for GDP is 10.4 billion euro. A pittance given the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of 914 billion USD.

Citizens' participation
In recent years, the Dutch government has proved to be unable to act decisively in tackling the climate and ecological crisis. Currently, the Cabinet is in talks with several major polluters, for the provision of state aid during COVID-19, without the participation of citizens. It goes without saying that the Cabinet's first attention should be paid to the fight against COVID-19, but this crisis should not be used to disregard democracy. Now is the time to put together a citizens' council to decide on the transition to a sustainable and just society. In a Citizens' Council, a jogged group of citizens, accompanied by experts, talks and decides on a subject, without being hampered by short-term political interests and corporate lobbying groups.