This is the outcome of a ruling by the Administrative Jurisdiction Division today (November 12, 2025). Although there is a regulation to have such decisions coordinated by a single administrative court, this ‘national coordination scheme’ could not be applied in this case. The House of Representatives did not approve the coordination decision taken for this purpose. This approval is necessary to have both the objections against the national zoning plan and the permit handled at once by the Administrative Jurisdiction Division.
Coordination Decision
It all revolves around the coordination decision taken by the Secretary of State for Defence in 2019. The Secretary of State wanted the national zoning plan and the associated environmental permit for the military radar station to go through the procedure together, allowing objections against both decisions to be handled at once by the Administrative Jurisdiction Division. By law, both the House of Representatives and the Senate must approve this coordination decision. The Senate explicitly approved the coordination decision in December 2019.
House of Representatives
This does not apply to the House of Representatives. They never explicitly approved the coordination decision. Approval must be evidenced by a written document from the House and cannot be inferred from the behavior of the House. Contrary to what ministers and the Secretary of State argue, explicit approval cannot be derived from the adopted motion by House members Valstar and Stoffer from July 2022 and the rejected motions by House members Haga et al. and Jasper van Dijk. Although the motion by Valstar and Stoffer calls on the cabinet to conduct measurements after the radar is placed in Herwijnen, the motion does not mention explicit approval of the coordination decision. Nor is such approval found in the debate report held in the House about these motions.
What now?
Since the explicit approval of the House of Representatives for the coordination decision is missing, the Secretary of State was not allowed to apply the national coordination scheme. This means that the Administrative Jurisdiction Division is not the competent court to rule on the environmental permit. That is the Gelderland court. Therefore, the Administrative Jurisdiction Division will forward the appeals against the environmental permit to the court. The Administrative Jurisdiction Division is the competent court to decide on objections against the national zoning plan. It is expected that the Administrative Jurisdiction Division will hold a hearing before summer 2026 to handle the objections against the national zoning plan for the radar station.
