Reflection on Challenges and Lessons Learned in Negotiations over the Western Scheldt Estuary

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Contributed by:Elizabeth Cooper

Article last edited 27 May 2014 by Amanda
Article originally added by Elizabeth

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This article is linked to Multilateral Negotiations over the Scheldt River Estuary: Transforming Centuries of Deadlock into Productive Multiparty Negotiations?

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Outcomes of Negotiations

Strained Relationships

Though the negotiations did ultimately result in agreements between the parties, the agreements did not necessarily lead to improved relationships within or among the parties, at least in near term. The Dutch’s misgivings about the deepening plans were exacerbated when they realized that the project ended up costing them significantly more than had been estimated (Warner and van Buuren 2009). Additionally, internal disagreements among the stakeholders within the countries were a major issue. Environmental stakeholders and the province of Zeeland were unhappy with the natural restoration that was mandated to occur alongside the deepening plan in the estuary (though for different reasons), as well as with the lex specialis that the Dutch enacted to allow a quick decision to be made without the expected levels of consultation. While environmental organizations called for a more rigorous response to the demands of nature conservation, including depoldering to “make space for the river,” Zeeland was vehemently opposed to any such depoldering, because it increased its vulnerability to flooding. In Belgium, the federalization process and the transfer of authority to regional governments created some bumps in the negotiations and underscored intra-national division on the development questions the negotiations covered.

Implementation Gap

"Because the resources needed for the implementation of international policies were distributed among national governments, lower level governments, and NGOs, the latter parties were able to exert influence on decision-making by national governments, and in some cases were able to make tactical linkages” (Meijerink 1999, 354). The local and regional actors were not cooperative with the national governments on the aspects of implementation for which they had not been able to have a say (which was the case for much of the negotiations), and their resistance created an implementation gap, as either their resources were needed to carry out the plans on which the countries had agreed (in the case of the local and regional authorities), or—in the case of environmental NGOs—their buy-in was needed in order to avoid delays brought on by legal obstruction.

Potential for Increased Effectiveness and Harmonization under the Long-Term Vision Plan for 2030

The LTV 2030 plan had several features that made it likely to succeed in creating a more cooperative and efficient structure for negotiations and planning going forward, as well as more durable solutions (Warner and van Buuren 2009): The organization of the plan incentivized collaborative methods, because the advice that OAP provided on the implementation of negotiated agreements was required to be unanimous. Particular attention was given to “dealing with uncertainties” and ongoing monitoring, especially vis-à-vis the adequateness of the nature compensation projects to counteract the environmental costs of the deepening development plans. Stakeholders outside of the OAP were invited to participate via an Accompanying Council, which engaged in an exploratory process to unite stakeholders in developing mutually agreeable avenues for dealing with difficult and politically charged issues. The project organization arranged informal meetings and pre-negotiation sessions around difficult issues with stakeholders.

Despite obvious improvements in the negotiating context since the establishment of the LTV 2030, the organization has not been without challenges. The increased cost of time and effort in the more structured, collaborative venue of the LTV has meant that on some occasions parties have had to be persuaded to come to the table rather than rely on riskier but more expeditious legal avenues. The usual posturing and staking out of more extreme positions was also not absent from the negotiations. Agricultural interest groups, especially in Zeeland, continued to be left out of negotiations under the LTV structure, and the durability of the outcomes agreed upon suffered as a result.

Reflection on Challenges and Lessons Learned

The majority of the negotiations up until the establishment of the LTV 2030 involved significant blockages and caused considerable relationship strain among the parties. Factors contributing to these challenges included the following:

• There was a history of mistrust between the parties, and thus no mutual faith or willingness to take risks to get agreements going
• This mistrust was not ameliorated by any shared trust-building tasks (i.e., research or JFF processes) until the establishment of the LTV
• Negotiations excluded relevant stakeholders, and were then either ultimately unable to lead to agreement, or faced significant obstacles to implementation even when the parties at the table did agree.
• The regional governments in Belgium had blocking power (as evident by Wallonia’s multiple vetoes of agreements made between the Belgian and Dutch national governments), but were not consulted.
• Local and environmental stakeholders with necessary resources were completely denied participation – and later resisted implementation efforts.
• Internal conflicts within each of the countries at times stalled the negotiations (e.g., the Dutch parliament’s opposition to the further deepening agreed upon between the Dutch and Belgian ministers, Wallonia’s veto of agreements at multiple stages in the process.)
• Both environmental organizations in the Netherlands and the province of Zeeland strongly opposed the plans as the Dutch government negotiated them. The fact that the Dutch signed agreements that in multiple instances were later rejected by their own internal stakeholders suggests that they did not anticipate the level of internal resistance they in fact encountered.
• The use of linkages and packaging cut both ways in terms of contributing to the negotiations. On one hand, they were a helpful strategy to get reluctant negotiators to the table (as was the case with the Dutch.) However, packaging tends to be a successful strategy when it allows parties negotiating to exploit differences between their priorities and interests. In the case of these negotiations, the linked items in some cases simply became another zero-sum issue to haggle over (as was the case for a period of time with the high-speed rail project in the negotiations between Flanders and the Netherlands.)
• The deals that were agreed upon did not include adaptive clauses or clear means to re-open negotiations if the parties found it to be necessary. This caused the parties to expend more energy several times trying to re-open the conversation when there was no pre-defined space in which those reconsiderations could occur.

Nearly all of these challenges were addressed in one way or another through the creation of the LTV 2030, indicating learning on the organizational and systemic levels. The ultimate effectiveness of the LTV will continue to be evaluated as more negotiations are brokered within the structure it set up. An in-depth analysis of the LTV is beyond the scope of this paper.

Remaining Questions

Several important questions remain that were outside the scope of the research of this case study:

• How did negotiations on Scheldt basin issues interact with negotiations in other forums on broader water policies, such as the Habitat and Birds Directives (addressed briefly in this paper), the international river policies of the UN-ECE, and the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands?
• There were multiple cases where national government negotiators did not address their own internal stakeholders’ resistance before trying to move agreements forward at the top level (i.e., environmental stakeholders and Zeeland in the Netherlands, Wallonia in Belgium). Did the top-level negotiators not anticipate this resistance? If so, what factors explain this breakdown in communication or stakeholder assessment? If they were aware of this resistance, did they underestimate the blocking power these stakeholders had?
• How did the federalization of Belgium ultimately affect negotiating outcomes in region? Was the more piecemeal process of negotiating with the regions separately beneficial to efforts to reach agreement?
• Though the somewhat lurching nature of the negotiations over many years appears rather clumsy, was the incremental approach to negotiating perhaps the best strategy available? Could it even have helped make agreements possible by building small degrees of trust between the parties?
• Will the LTV ultimately resolve the systemic negotiating problems for region?
• Will it succeed in incorporating other legitimate stakeholders that were excluded in previous iterations of the negotiations?
• What changed about the political and/or leadership context of the parties negotiating that caused them to decide to create the LTV?