June 3rd, GroenFront! occupied the Benelux headquarters of E.ON in Rotterdam. The office was closed shut down from 6 AM — 1 PM, when police specialists finally managed to remove some technologically advanced lock-ons. GroenFront! is demanding an immediate halt to the construction of an E.ON coal power plant on the Maasvlakte, part of the port of Rotterdam. The action is part of GroenFront!‘s “shrink or drown” campaign, which aims at bringing down the size of the Dutch economy to more manageable proportions. Seven protestors were arrested for refusing police orders or refusing to show an ID. They were released around midnight.
The E.ON plant is said to be CO2 capture-ready, but in a leaked email conversation between E.ON managers at the British Dept. of Industry, it appears E.ON itself has no faith in this technology at all and is not expecting it to work. GroenFront! and clown army activists had earlier tried to put a literal ‘cork’ on an existing E.ON plant in Holland to illustrate this point.
July 19th a bicycle protest and picnic are being organised by locals from the area and GroenFront!-ers.
Another coal power plant is being planned only 1 km from E.ON’s construction site, by the Belgian company Electrabel, and there are also plans by NUON and RWE for new coal power plants that GroenFront! says it will oppose by direct action.
GroenFront! was started in 1996 as the Dutch and Belgian branch of EarthFirst.
More info: http://www.groenfront.nl