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Wind farm in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania: serious intervention justified
Photo: Norbert Fellechner / imago images/BildFunkMV
New wind turbines are sometimes vigorously opposed.
In order to increase acceptance, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania was the first federal state to enact a mandatory participation law in 2016.
Rightly so, as the Federal Constitutional Court has now decided.
According to the decision, operators may be legally obliged to give affected citizens and municipalities a financial share of the income.
The expansion of wind energy on land is to be increased through the participation of local residents in the yield.
According to the Federal Constitutional Court, the public interest goals pursued, such as climate protection and securing the power supply, are "sufficiently important" to justify the "serious interference with professional freedom".
Countries may enact more extensive rules
According to the Participation Act in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, operators must set up a project company before building a wind farm and offer at least one-fifth of the shares for sale to communities and citizens within a five-kilometer radius.
The judges dismissed the constitutional complaint of a wind energy company.
He saw his professional freedom and his right to property violated and also found that the regulation should not have been decided by the state.
However, only a small point of the law was objected to, which provides for very complex information obligations.
It was also a long way to the mandatory offers in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania – a regulation based on the Danish model.
Even after the completion of the first community wind farm, it took years before the residents were offered shares in the limited partnership.
For example, a competitor had complained about the rights of way for the wind farm.
At the federal level, wind turbine operators can voluntarily involve the affected municipalities financially.
However, the individual federal states may enact more extensive regulations.
File number: 1 BvR 1187/17
Apr/dpa/AFP