Wind power companies in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania complain particularly frequently against authorities because of delayed approval procedures. This emerges from a Germany-wide survey by the German Press Agency. There are also corresponding complaints of failure to act elsewhere. After evaluating the feedback from almost all federal states, nowhere have there been nearly as many cases as in the northeast.
According to the Higher Administrative Court (OVG) in Greifswald, 19 corresponding lawsuits were pending as of October 1st. At the beginning of September, according to information at the time, there were even 21. For the whole of Germany, the survey of the responsible courts revealed a number of at least 30 such actions for failure to act. Accordingly, in most federal states these are isolated cases. No cases were reported in several countries, including Bavaria, Hamburg, Saarland and Saxony. The neighboring northern federal state of Schleswig-Holstein recorded three lawsuits, Lower Saxony two.
As a possible explanation for the high number in MV, the Federal Wind Energy Association (BWE) pointed to the long process times in the northeast, which made lawsuits more likely.
According to figures from the Federal-State Cooperation Committee, approval procedures in 2022 took an average of nine months in Germany once the documents were complete. The median – an average in which, unlike the average, individual extreme values ??have no particular influence – is 6.4 months. In Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania the average was almost 16 months. Of the states with corresponding data, only Thuringia was slower (16.3). A request to the Schwerin Ministry of the Environment regarding the numerous complaints in the northeast recently remained unanswered.
According to the law, authorities have seven months after receipt of the complete application documents and three months in simplified procedures to make a decision. You can extend the deadline by three months, for example in the event of difficulties, but you must give reasons for this. The BWE criticized the fact that confirmation of completeness was often not provided or was delayed by the repeated requests for new documents. The association demanded a limit to a one-off additional request and also a deadline for confirmation of completeness.
Negotiations before the OVG in Greifswald have already ended in favor of wind power planners several times this year. The presiding judge Klaus Sperlich spoke, among other things, of a “ping-pong game” in the administration and emphasized the public interest in wind energy expansion. During the arduous, long negotiations, the court weighed up issues of monument protection or commented on bird observations on file. Sperlich repeatedly made his dissatisfaction with the responsible authority clear and emphasized that courts could not take on the function of approval authorities. An authority representative referred to a tense personnel situation during a negotiation at the beginning of the year.
Report of the Federal-State Cooperation Committee BImSchG
