VROM-raad

The Dutch minister of Housing. Spatial Planning and the Environment and his
colleague, responsible for Agriculture, Nature and Fisheries, requested the Council for
advice on the long term policy for the rural areas in the Netherlands. This policy is laid
down by the government in national policy documents on spatial planning and on the
management of nature and landscape1. The Council published its advice in September
1999 under the title ‘Viable and vibrant countryside – strategies for the rural areas’. The
Council had published at an earlier stage an advice entitled ’City Land-Plus’, in which a
number of spatial strategies on perspectives for urbanisation in the Netherlands were
recommended. This advice ‘Viable and Vibrant Countryside’ is complementary to this.

On 28 May 1998 the then Minister of Housing, Spatial Planning and the
Environment (VROM), Mrs. M. de Boer, asked the Council for Housing, Spatial
Planning and the Environment (hereafter often referred to as ‘the Council’) to draw up
an advice in connection with the third Conference of the Parties to the Climate Treaty,
for the purposes of the Climate Policy Implementation Document. This document was
foreshadowed in the Third National Environmental Policy Plan and is intended to broaden
and intensify policy to combat climate change. As part of the preparations for the
Implementation Document, the ECN (Netherlands Energy Research Foundation) and
the RIVM (National Institute of Public Health and the Environment) have drawn up a
document which summarises the options for reducing the emissions of greenhouse gases
and presents data in this regard1. Several sets of options are elaborated, corresponding to different reductions and selection criteria. The advice request is appended to this advice
as Annex 2. On 9 November 1998 the present Minister of Housing, Spatial Planning and
the Environment, Mr. J.P. Pronk, addressed a supplementary request to the Council: that
the results of the fourth Conference of the Parties to the Climate Treaty in Buenos Aires
should be taken on board in the advice. He also requested the Council to organise a
debate on the advice of the Council and the Options Document.

In the advice the Council gives its vision on the management of policy for housing, spatial planning and the environment.