The environmental network GRÜNE LIGA is today publishing a background paper on the planned “Net Zero Valley Lusatia”, which summarizes the main points of criticism of the proposed designation of the whole of Lausitz region in Germany as a so-called “acceleration valley”.

„In the name of climate protection, trees and participation rights are to be cut down, in some cases for fossil fuel projects. This is not what the EU wants to promote with the Net Zero Industry Act,” says René Schuster from the Cottbus environmental group.

For example, the EU directive requires the priority use of already sealed areas. However, the initiators of the Lusatian proposal want to clear and reseal hundreds of hectares of forest, even though the region has sufficient former industrial land.

One major consequence of the planned acceleration of approval has apparently been concealed even from many supporters: if new industrial settlements or copper mining were to drain further water resources from the Spree area, the public interest in the projects would be established before it was even known who would be affected. “This is nothing less than an attempt to dismantle the rule of law!” is René Schuster's assessment of the process.

The project also includes the expansion of roads - the compatibility of which is also no longer to be assessed. “It is fake labeling to cheat unnecessary road plans from the 1990s into an application under the Net Zero Industry Act in order to have them written down as a public interest,” says Schuster.

The reason for the dispute with the project is that nature conservation associations were asked by the Brandenburg Ministry to comment in a scoping process, as the EU Directive prescribes a strategic environmental assessment for “Net Zero Valleys”. However, the procedure and subject of the application are still completely unclear.

The points of criticism are summarized on eight pages and published in German and English.