Earthquake compensation talks bogged down in dispute

Five months after economic affairs minister Henk Kamp set aside €1.2bn to compensate people in Groningen affected by earthquakes, no one has yet received any money, the Volkskrant says on Thursday.

People whose houses have been damaged by the quakes, which are due to natural gas extraction, say they face structural problems in claiming damages.

The claims are being handled by the Nederlandse Aardolie Maatschappij (NAM), the company in charge of the gas extraction. Half of NAM is owned by Shell, the other half by ExxonMobil.

Independence

Residents and local officials say NAM should not be in charge of paying the compensation because it has a financial interest in keeping payouts as low as possible.

Kamp set up a discussion platform to distribute the €1.2bn and to try to restore confidence among locals. But the talks between NAM, local officials and residents’ associations on setting up an independent assessment agency have become bogged down in dispute, the paper says.

Locals say NAM wants to retain final responsibility for the agency and does not favour an independent operation. ‘It is a question of finding the balance,’ a spokesman told the paper.

Kamp has already been alerted to the stalemate. The quakes have been a political hot potato for the past couple of years. The government has now sharply reduced gas production in the most severely affected areas.

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