The dispute over the massive police operation in the Hambach Forest in autumn 2018 led to another exchange of blows in the Düsseldorf state parliament on Thursday. Spokesmen for the SPD and the Greens accused the black and yellow state government of North Rhine-Westphalia of continuing to justify the eviction at the time “with legal maneuvers” and “mallet methods”. NRW home minister Ina Scharrenbach (CDU) replied that thanks to the coal compromise of 2019, “the social conflict in the Hambach Forest is over”. In 2020, the coal phase-out law stipulated that the forest on the edge of the open-cast lignite mine should be preserved.
The reason for the new conflict is a ruling by the Cologne Administrative Court, which in September declared the police operation (estimated cost: 50 million euros) against forest squatters and tree house residents illegal in September. The court had complained that the state government had only put forward its concern about fire protection in the forest in 2018 to legally justify the eviction. At the end of October, the Ministry of Home Affairs instructed the city of Kerpen, which had been sued by an opponent of coal for the operation, to appeal the Cologne judgment. This happened despite the fact that the Kerpen City Council had decided to accept the verdict.
“You can’t solve social conflicts with fire protection.”
On Thursday, Wibke Brems, energy policy spokeswoman for the NRW Greens in the state parliament, accused the home minister of violating the course, surprisingly announced the day before by Prime Minister Hendrik Wüst, of aiming for a coal phase-out in 2030 (instead of 2038). Scharrenbach is “not about pacification, but about a demonstration of power and righteousness,” said Brems. The SPD MP Christian Dahm criticized Scharrenbach for making the city of Kerpen “a tool for its narrow-minded goal” to defend the eviction at the time: “Social conflicts cannot be resolved with fire protection.”
The CDU Minister Scharrenbach rejected this. Your instruction was necessary because the legal dispute over the eviction affects “supra-local interests” and does not only concern the city of Kerpen. Part of the Hambach Forest does not belong to Kerpen, but is subject to the supervision of the neighboring district of Düren. In addition, a new conflict lurks in North Rhine-Westphalia: 25 kilometers north of the Hambach Forest, hundreds of climate activists are now protesting in the village of Lützerath against the expansion of the Garzweiler II open-cast lignite mine.
In the state parliament, Scharrenbach also protested against the opposition’s accusation that their ministry had failed to appear as an invited party in the legal dispute in good time. Apparently, the home ministry was initially surprised by the Cologne judgment. A subsequent summons from the state government to the pending proceedings before the Higher Administrative Court in Münster, according to the minister, would have meant “procedural uncertainties” and would probably have failed.
A spokesman for the city of Kerpen again confirmed to the SZ on Thursday that the local mayor Dieter Spürck (CDU) felt that he was legally bound by the requirement from Düsseldorf: The mayor would become “an extended arm of the state government” by “lending organs” at the moment of the instruction. . The city will therefore go to the next instance and will now have to justify its appeal against the Cologne judgment.
Minister Scharrenbach ended the debate on Thursday with an appeal to all democratic parliamentary groups in the state parliament. Together they should call on the squatters who have long since returned in the Hambach Forest to leave the forest. Only then can one decide to transfer the forest to a public foundation. In Düsseldorf it is considered unlikely that such a move could succeed before the NRW state elections.