The Members' Council has been able to establish that FloriNEE's petition meets the minimum requirements. "We had no doubt about that, but we do owe it to our members to follow the procedure properly," says Marcel van Tol, chairman of the Members' Council of Royal FloraHolland.
Petition talks
"What matters to us is that we, as growers, continue to talk to each other. This week, the petition signatories will receive an invitation to talk with members of the Members' Council. To be able to send out the invitations, we naturally had to firm up the list of members on whose behalf the request was made. The petition talks will take place from Monday 15 March 2021. In addition to these petition talks, we will of course also continue to talk to other members of the cooperative, because ultimately we are a cooperative with some 4,000 member companies."
Protests from members who had not signed
The first and last names of the petition signatories were not provided with the petition. Marcel van Tol: "We received several protests from companies on the list whose managing director had not signed. That is why we went through the list together with the initiators of the petition. With sufficient certainty, we can say that somewhere between 400 and 450 members have signed the petition. In any case, we are not talking about 800 cooperative members as reported by various media."
Continuation of formal process
In addition to the petition talks, we will, of course, also go through the formal route following the time schedule set for this. After all, that is the route the petitioners chose. The petition was formally received on 19 February 2021. Now that the list of petition signatories has been checked, the next step is to call a meeting with the chairmen of the Members' Council, Supervisory Board and Management Board. After that, a meeting will be held with the petitioners in which they can further explain the request.
For more information:
Royal FloraHolland
www.royalfloraholland.com