Massive popular rejection with 7,500 consultation responses to the EU’s Renewable Energy Directive

More than 7,500 responses have been received to the government’s consultation on the EU’s revised Renewable Energy Directive. This makes it one of the hearings that has received the most input ever. Almost everyone is asking the government to say no to the directive.

“The massive response sends a clear signal from the grassroots to the government that the population is not going to accept that the Renewables Directive is introduced either in whole or in part in Norway.” says John Fiskvik, chairman of Motvind Norge

Motvind Norge has reacted strongly to the fact that such a far-reaching directive with enormous consequences, with a weakening of the legal protection of nature, rapid processes for wind power development, tight deadlines with automatic approval and opening for state overruns by municipalities and landowners, is not available in Norwegian. The organization therefore demanded translation and a two-month deferred deadline. After pressure, the deadline was postponed from Good Friday in Easter to 19 April, but no Norwegian text is yet available.

“It is highly undemocratic for the authorities to turn the introduction of invasive and controversial energy policy into a cat-and-mouse game with the population. It undermines democratic principles of openness and participation” says John Fiskvik.

Excerpts from some of the consultation input:

• NVE says that “NVE’s assessment is that the requirements for deadlines in license processing and designation of so-called acceleration areas for the development of renewable power will entail a major change in the license processing process”. In other words, the directive may result in us having to reverse several decades of development in public spatial planning processes for energy development

• KS says that “The renewables directive challenges local self-government and room for action” and indicates that “centralized processes do not promote local acceptance”. KS also asks nine key questions about how the directive will work for the municipalities. The many questions show how unclear the text of the directive is.

• The municipalities: Motvind Norge reacts to the fact that the Ministry of Energy has not sent out the consultation to the municipalities. We have found that only Hareid, Lund and Aure municipalities have submitted consultation responses, and all write that the directive is undesirable. The municipalities are perhaps the party most affected by the Renewables Directive, and Motvind Norge believes it is undemocratic that they are not heard and wonders whether this is sound management practice.

• Renewable Norway for its part, sees no obstacles to introducing the Renewables Directive and supports its introduction in its entirety as quickly as possible. This constitutes a breach of promise as Renewable Norway and the wind power industry have time and again stated about “new good licensing processes”, where one should “build wind power on a level with the municipalities”, and to take more account of people, nature and biological diversity. Now they instead support fast-track processes with little democratic participation, weakening of impact assessments and overrunning.

“If the government were to introduce the renewables directive, it would open the door for a very hard drive from the wind power industry to secure large natural and open air areas for wind power development. It will be a tragedy for both people, nature and biodiversity” says Sveinulf Vågene, leader of the union policy committee in Motvind Norge.

Motvind Norge now demands that the government respond to the population’s demands by using the right of reservation under the EEA Agreement to reject the directive. The Center Party and parts of the grassroots in the Labor Party are strongly against the directive, and now the consultation responses show that they have very broad support among the people to reject the introduction.