Estonia looking to curb environmental groups' tools for contesting defense projects
The Riigikogu on Tuesday will hold the third reading of amendments to the Building Code and related legislation intended to speed up the planning and construction of facilities needed for national defense.
While current law does not set conditions that environmental organizations must meet in order to gain standing to challenge matters related to national defense construction projects, the Ministry of Defense has proposed that in the future environmental organizations would have to meet three conditions in order to have the right to appeal such projects.
First, an environmental organization would have to operate either as a nonprofit association or as a foundation whose stated purpose is environmental protection and whose activities also promote environmental protection, said Margit Gross, undersecretary for legal and administrative matters at the Ministry of Defense.
"For nonprofit associations, an environmental organization would need to have at least 20 members. If it is an association with fewer than 20 members, it would not have the right to challenge national defense construction projects. The third condition concerns the organization's period of activity — it must have been operating in Estonia for at least two years," Gross explained.
According to Gross, such conditions would help ensure that administrative acts or actions concerning national defense construction projects are challenged by environmental organizations that have a genuine and lasting connection to representing environmental interests, rather than only a formal or temporary interest.
"The purpose of this amendment concerning the right of environmental organizations to file appeals is to balance environmental and national defense interests by more specifically defining the legal standing of environmental organizations and only in disputes involving national defense construction projects," the undersecretary said.
The amendment would directly affect, for example, NGO For the Defense of Soodla (MTÜ Soodla kaitseks), which advocates for the living, business and natural environment around the Soodla Training Area and the entire North Estonia training area. Although the nonprofit has existed for more than two years, it currently has fewer than 20 members. Vahur Värk, a member of the nonprofit's board, said that new members can always be added, but that doing so could make decision-making more complicated.
Värk called the entire Ministry of Defense proposal restrictive and silencing.
"This two-year requirement is also relatively difficult to understand because, for example, NGO For the Defense of Soodla was created specifically so that we could have a say in the preparation of the planning process. If the planning process had not been initiated, it would never have occurred to us to create such a nonprofit. So how is it that if a new project comes along, we have to wait two years before we are allowed to have any say? We are not against the Soodla training area — there are simply fundamental issues there that we would like the state to handle differently," he said.
Gross said the ministry has conducted a legal analysis assessing international practice, the case law of the European Court and the Aarhus Convention. According to the analysis, restrictions concerning legal form, membership numbers and duration of activity are consistent with both international practice and the Aarhus Convention.
The Aarhus Convention governs access to environmental information, public participation in environmental decision-making and the right to go to court in such matters.
--
Editor: Marcus Turovski, Mait Ots
