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The only way to do it quickly is with LNG terminals and wind power – otherwise the traffic lights are paralysed

In the case of the railway, it is an average of 20 years.

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The only way to do it quickly is with LNG terminals and wind power – otherwise the traffic lights are paralysed

In the case of the railway, it is an average of 20 years. That's how long it takes for larger rail projects from planning to commissioning. Because it is similar with other construction projects in Germany, "planning acceleration" has been part of the standard vocabulary of political declarations of intent for years. They fill several pages in the traffic light coalition agreement. But there is hardly any acceleration in their realization.

Even a new draft law, with which Federal Minister of Justice Marco Buschmann (FDP) wants to streamline the procedures of the administrative courts, is unlikely to increase the pace significantly. "What the Federal Minister of Justice has put together in this draft does not do any harm in principle, but on its own will not bring about any significant acceleration in the existing administrative court practice," judges Jan Ziekow, who, as director of the German Research Institute for Public Administration at the University of Speyer, has been responsible for planning and Approval processes observed. The draft law is "essentially just a confirmation of actual practice," said Ziekow WELT, "could make sense as a kind of reminder for the back of the judge's mind", but will "accelerate little".

In concrete terms, Buschmann wants the courts to give priority to the relevant procedures over other cases in the case of larger wind power projects, high-voltage lines, the connection of liquid gas terminals and important transport projects. The proceedings should also start quickly: According to the draft, a first hearing should take place no later than two months after the reply to a complaint.

Furthermore, the Minister of Justice wants the courts to reject statements and evidence that are only presented after a period set by the court. And if the administrative act for a project has deficiencies that can be remedied in the foreseeable future, these deficiencies should not have a suspensive effect.

In addition, the courts should take it into account if the Bundestag has determined that the project is in the overriding public interest. In addition, Buschmann wants to set up planning adjudication bodies at administrative courts that specialize in such procedures and are staffed with particularly competent judges.

In Ziekow's opinion, all of this is not wrong, but could hardly speed up the practice that is practiced anyway. "As far as politically and economically priority infrastructure projects are concerned, such as large transport projects, high-voltage lines and especially LNG terminals, the procedures have already been streamlined and, with the concentration on higher administrative courts and the Federal Administrative Court, all possibilities for acceleration have already been exhausted," states Ziekow.

In fact, the competence of higher administrative courts for such priority projects was already laid down in the investment acceleration law of the grand coalition of 2020. And at these higher courts, according to Ziekow, "there is already the expertise that the minister now wants to create through planning adjudication bodies".

Ziekow also considers Buschmann's stipulation that evidence received late and deficiencies that can be easily remedied should be ignored to be "a bit impractical". "On the one hand, this is already possible for the courts today, and on the other hand, the lawyers of those involved in the proceedings before the Federal Administrative Court are professionals who do not submit evidence late."

Ziekow is critical of Buschmann's demand for prioritization of such procedures. Something like that could be written into a law. “But this cannot and must not change the fact that it is part of judicial independence to determine when a case is ready for a decision and when it is not. Even the most expert judges first have to familiarize themselves with planning approval documents, which often have more than 2,000 pages.”

If the court proceedings as such cannot be speeded up much, the question is all the more how speed can be ensured otherwise. Citizen participation as early as possible is often mentioned in order to prevent lawsuits through consensus solutions. Deutsche Bahn AG is now regarded as exemplary, as it transparently involves those affected from the outset in large-scale projects decided by the legislature. But even that cannot prevent possible lawsuits against a specific route in the end. In addition, numerous different routes are discussed in rail participation forums, all of which have to be analyzed and calculated. This takes time and requires a lot of specialist staff – who are currently lacking.

In the opinion of the Union faction, however, there are certainly possibilities for shortening the procedures: "Both planning and citizen participation and legal procedures could be greatly accelerated if there were standardized digital platforms for the provision and exchange of documents," said Union faction Vice Steffen Bilger (CDU ) WORLD. Furthermore, he demands that Ampel does not retreat to the fact that some acceleration options could fail because of European law. If necessary, the federal government in Brussels must work for changes, for example in species protection issues.

But in this case, the traffic light "does not even use the leeway that EU law opens up". The fact that the government is now weighting species protection differently than before in the case of LNG terminals and the expansion of wind power is not enough: "An appropriate interpretation of species protection specifications must also be applied to important transport projects," demands Bilger. In addition, the rights of associations to sue would have to be defined differently: "FDP and SPD should finally persuade the Greens not to align the right to sue as a group to the interests of NGOs, but rather to whether an association is affected at all in a specific project or not, for example from Lower Saxony in Germany a procedure in Lower Bavaria intervenes.”

"Kick-off Politics" is WELT's daily news podcast. The most important topic analyzed by WELT editors and the dates of the day. Subscribe to the podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, among others, or directly via RSS feed.

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