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After months of political friction, Meta announces that it will not be constructing a data center in de Dutch municipality of Zeewolde.

“Given the current circumstances, we have decided to pause our developments in Zeewolde”, shared a spokesperson.

Meta and Zeewolde (Dutch municipality) have been discussing the construction of a data center for the past two years. In The Netherlands, municipalities have some autonomy for data center construction projects. As such, the municipality of Zeewolde approved the data center’s construction plans at the end of 2021.

The decision was controversial. Many politicians refused to accept that a municipality was able sign-off a data center with national consequences. In December, the Senate called on the government to halt the project. On March 21, minister Hugo de Jonge announced that the data center was unlikely to succeed. Today, Meta openly withdrew.

No hyperscale data centers

The data center in Zeewolde is off the table for now. The same applies to data center projects in other parts of the Netherlands. In mid-February, the government announced that no building permits will be granted for hyperscale data centers in the coming nine months. According to the government, the period is needed to draw up new, stricter rules for the construction of hyperscale data centers.

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