For years there has been a dispute in Thuringia about the construction of wind turbines in the forest. Now there is a constitutional court ruling that clarifies the fronts – and makes parties look bad.
Karlsruhe / Erfurt (dpa / th) – No wind turbines in the forest was the credo of the Thuringian CDU for years. According to a decision by the Federal Constitutional Court, the blanket ban in the Thuringian Forest Act must now be dropped – wind turbines can be built by forest owners. According to a decision by the Federal Constitutional Court (1 BvR 2661/21) published on Thursday, the Thuringian wind turbine taboo is unconstitutional. The decision of the Karlsruhe judges clarifies the fronts in the Free State.
Representatives of the red-red-green minority coalition, who at the end of 2020 had gnashed their teeth in favor of the budgetary decision, approved the change in the law in the state parliament, appeared relieved. The CDU parliamentary group, however, remained stubborn.
“The judgment finally solves a blockage in Thuringia that has unnecessarily held us up for too long in the energy transition,” said Energy Minister Anja Siegesmund in Erfurt. The Greens politician wants to quickly abolish the blanket ban on wind turbines in the forest, which the constitutional court has criticized – without neglecting nature conservation. Prime Minister Bodo Ramelow (left) called it an “ideologically driven ban regulation” in the short message service Twitter, which the CDU had enforced together with the opposition from the FDP and AfD. “Forest conversion with income from WKA (wind turbines) are permissible and sensible,” said the Thuringian head of government.
The plaintiffs
Private forest owners had lodged a constitutional complaint against the general ban in the Thuringian Forest Act, which was amended at the end of 2020 – with success. They want to build wind turbines on bare land with project developers.
The decision of the Federal Constitutional Court
The court declared the ban in the Thuringian Forest Act “incompatible with the Basic Law and therefore void”. It prohibits without exception the change in the type of use of forest areas and “prevents any construction of wind turbines in forest areas,” says the decision. This is an encroachment on the property rights of forest owners, which are protected by the Basic Law. The Free State of Thuringia lacks the legislative competence for the regulation, since the federal government has also made legal regulations in this area. The right to land is called.
Nature protection continues to apply to forests
As a rule, wind turbines are located in locations that are severely damaged or already treeless after bark beetle infestation, drought and storms – so-called calamity areas. And with their legislative competence for nature conservation and landscape management, the federal states could continue to place forests under protection “if these areas are worthy of protection and need protection because of their ecological function, their location or their beauty,” the constitutional judges explained.
government reactions
In addition to Energy Minister Siegesmund, Infrastructure Minister Susanna Karawanskij (left) also welcomed the Karlsruhe verdict. “If wind in the forest were not permitted in densely wooded regions of southern and eastern Thuringia, northern and central Thuringia would have to be disproportionately burdened,” she said. She wants to ensure “that priority is given to damaged forest areas or bare areas for wind turbines in the forest”. The constitutional court has strengthened the property rights of the approximately 180,000 forest owners in Thuringia. Siegesmund pointed out that some energy-intensive companies surrounded by forest areas wanted to build their own wind turbines for their electricity supply. The environmental organization BUND Thüringen called for careful planning of wind turbines and calls for clear exclusion areas in the forest.
Opposition remains critical
“We can protect nature in the forest, that has been confirmed by the Federal Constitutional Court. How we actually implement this must now be clarified in further parliamentary proceedings,” explained the energy politician of the CDU parliamentary group, Thomas Gottweiss. It is still in the hands of the Thuringian state parliament to shape the special concerns of nature conservation with its legislative competence, said the FDP group spokesman Thomas Kemmerich. “We don’t save our forest by planting wind turbines up to 250 meters high in it. We save it by reforesting damaged areas and ecologically converting the forest.” The AfD parliamentary group also expressed criticism. “We are sticking to our position that the forest must not be an industrial site for renewable energies,” said AfD MP Nadine Hoffmann.
The situation in other states
According to an investigation by the scientific service of the Bundestag as of August 2022, there is also a ban on wind power in forest areas in some other federal states. It says: “The use of forest sites for wind energy is currently permitted in six federal states: Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, Brandenburg, Hesse, Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland.” In two other federal states – North Rhine-Westphalia and Lower Saxony – it is possible to a limited extent. According to the federal government’s “wind on land law” from July, two percent of the federal area is to be designated for wind energy by the end of 2032. There are guidelines for the 16 federal states as to how high their share must be to achieve the goal. In Thuringia it will be 1.8 percent by 2027 and 2.2 percent by 2032, said a spokesman for the Ministry of Energy in Erfurt.
