Brussels, 24/06/2013 (Agence Europe) - The General Court of the EU has agreed to examine the legal challenge filed by the European Platform Against Industrial Windfarms (EPWF) against the European Commission.
On 19 June, the European Court of Justice agreed that the complaint by the EPWF was admissible. This platform is made up of 608 associations of actual and potential victims of windfarms from 24 countries and its legal recourse challenges the extension of the programme after 2020 of the Commission's renewable energies programme in Europe.
The EPWF accuses the European Commission of breaching the environmental rights of European citizens under the Aarhus Convention, which guarantees access to information and public participation during the decision-making process, in addition to access to legal assistance in environmental matters. The legal recourse also pinpoints failure to conduct technical studies calculating the cumulative effect on the environment of building thousands of wind farms.
The EPWF argues that investor confidence could be significantly upset by this legal action, which could also lead to an obligatory review, not just of the objectives but also of the EU's whole energy policy. The EPWF is “hailing this as a first victory in their fight towards holding the European Commission accountable for the catastrophic results of its energy policy”.
The association also doubts the climate efficiency of the European Commission's windfarm policy, which is based on the hypothesis that electricity from wind farms reduces reliance on fossil fuels and creates a consequent reduction in carbon emissions. The EPWF asserts that fossil fuel power stations are “forced to ramp their production up and down to balance the erratic production of windfarms, are burning more fuel in the process. And if you add all the other factors which the Commission did not investigate, in the end there are no net savings of CO2. Some engineers even suggest that the net overall result could be an increase in fossil fuel consumption”.
The EPWF denounces the collateral damage windfarms cause, from people's health and birds and bats being killed, to “millionaire” subsidies, to growing public debt, and from fast-rising power bills to the wholesale destruction of jobs etc. (EH/transl.fl)
