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| A gas drilling site. Photo: Graham Dockery |
The Council of State has given economic affairs minister Erik
Wiebes one year to come up with proper arguments to support his decision to cap
the extraction of gas from under Groningen province at 21.6 billion cubic
metres a year.
The case was brought by a group of Groningen residents and green
group Milieudefensie who said safety of locals is more important than providing
income for the treasury. They wanted gas production to be drastically reduced
or stopped altogether.
Hundreds of homes in the province have been damaged by
earthquakes caused by the land settling following gas extraction.
At the
beginning of this year, the Council of State ruled that the ministry did not
have to further reduce gas volumes pending a new decision on the legitimacy of
the protestors’ claim.
Now the Council of State, which is the country’s highest
administrative court, has ruled that the original decision to cut production by
a limited amount was not properly supported by facts.
‘The minister has so far
failed to properly substantiate his previous decision to allow 21.6 billion
cubic metres to be extracted per gas year over the next five years,’ the court
said in a statement.
The minister should, the court said, have taken the safety
of locals more into account when reaching his decision and done more to analyse
the potential risks.
Unacceptable
It is ‘unacceptable’ that gas group NAM was
given five years to pump up gas from the province without a proper risk
analysis, the court said.
Wiebes said in a reaction that the court’s ruling was
‘strong’. ‘We have to take a new decision within a year, and we are now getting
down to work,’ he said.
Milieudefensie said in a website statement that the
verdict is a ‘historic victory’ for both Groningen and the climate. The ruling
is a sign to the minister that we have to ‘kick our gas habit’, the
organisation said.
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