Around 150 to 200 protesters were arrested in Amsterdam last Friday after breaking into the construction site of a new Microsoft data center in an attempt to halt construction.
Organized by the group Geef Tegengas, with participants from the grassroots organization Extinction Rebellion and pro-Palestine groups, it was the latest in a series of protests amid widespread backlash against data centers across Europe.
Smaller protests took place the same day outside of a data center near Berlin, in Warsaw by the Polish parliament, at the main square in Zagreb, Croatia, in the center of Dublin, and in Bristol in the UK.
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The protests follow hot on the heels of U.S. midterm elections in which voters backed anti-data-center candidates at almost every level of government.
Approximately 500 protesters broke into the Amsterdam site on Friday afternoon by breaking open the fence, while hundreds more gathered outside. Some demonstrators climbed onto cranes and the roof of the construction site near Sloterdijk train station in the Westpoort district.
Another demonstration, organized by Fossiel Vrij Nederland in solidarity with the other groups, took place outside of the construction site, with 300 to 400 demonstrators joining in.
“All over the world, ordinary people are resisting the construction of data centers. And rightly so: data centers guzzle water and energy, cause noise pollution, and contribute to the further heating of the planet,” Martijn Dekkers, spokesperson for Extinction Rebellion, said in a statement ahead of the protest.
Police responded swiftly to protesters who broke into the site, arresting between 150 and 200 demonstrators who did not leave after being ordered to do so. Local news reports indicated that police used pepper spray and, in some cases, physical force to remove protesters who repeatedly ignored police requests.
A spokesperson for Geef Tegengas, which translates to "give pushback," told local news broadcaster AT5 that they were displeased with the overall police response.
“There is a right to demonstrate in this country, yet that right is being disregarded; even the march toward the data center was not facilitated,” a spokesperson said.
A formal complaint was filed by the owner of the property, Oaktree-backed Pure Data Centres.
“We understand that this project stirs up strong emotions, and we respect people’s right to express their opinions in a peaceful manner. However, we do not condone any actions that violate the law or put people’s safety at risk,” a Microsoft spokesperson said in a statement.
The Microsoft data center in question, set to be the largest in Amsterdam, has been the subject of debate over the past few months. The facility consists of three 85-meter-tall towers, a design that bypasses current regulations for “hyperscale” data centers.
Plans for the data center date back to 2016, before the municipality placed a ban on new data centers in the summer of 2019 due to grid capacity and land scarcity. The facility has changed hands twice since then.
The facility does not fall under the national ban, in effect since Jan. 1, 2024, against large-scale data centers with a connection capacity of 70 megawatts or more and that span more than 10 hectares outside of the Eemshaven and Wieringermeer regions.
The province of Noord-Holland previously stated that the plans predate the ban, and while the facility’s 78 MW capacity is above the limit, its built floor area is under 10 hectares.
The protest comes as grid operators across the Netherlands struggle with congestion. Data centers are predicted to account for approximately 15% of the country's electricity use by 2030, up from 4.6% in 2024, according to Statistics Netherlands.
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