The Estonian parliament will consider amendments to the Construction Act and related legislation in its third reading on the 21st of April to speed up the planning and construction of facilities necessary for national defense, writes ERR News.
Currently, the law does not stipulate that environmental organizations must meet certain criteria in order to be able to challenge decisions related to the construction of national defense facilities. The Estonian Ministry of Defense has suggested that in the future these organizations must meet three criteria in order to be able to oppose construction.
First, an environmental organization will have to be either a non-profit association or a foundation whose goal is environmental protection and whose activities promote environmental protection.
Margit Gross, Undersecretary for Legal and Administrative Affairs at the Ministry of Defense, indicated that non-profit organizations must have at least 20 members. If there are fewer members, the organization will not have the right to challenge the construction of national defense facilities. The third condition concerns the duration of the activity – in order to challenge projects, the organization must have been operating in Estonia for at least two years.
According to Gross, these conditions will ensure that administrative acts or actions affecting national defense will be challenged only by organizations whose goal is truly environmental protection, and not a formal or temporary interest in preventing the implementation of the project. The Undersecretary said that
the aim of the amendments is to balance the interests of environmental protection and national defense.
The amendments will directly affect, for example, the non-governmental organization For the Defense of Soodla (MTÃœ Soodla kaitseks), which operates around the Soodla training ground. Although the organization has been operating for more than two years, it has fewer than 20 members. Vahur Värk, a member of the organization’s board, said that the number of members can always be increased, but that would make decision-making more difficult. Värk called the Defense Ministry’s proposal restrictive and an attempt to silence the public. He said that the requirement for at least two years of activity history is also quite incomprehensible, because, for example, For the Defense of Soodla was founded precisely so that people would have a say in the planning process. If the planning process for the project had not begun, the organization would not have been founded at all: “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.”
Gross informed that the ministry has conducted a legal analysis, evaluating international practice, and, according to it, the restrictions affecting the legal status, number of members and duration of the organization are in line with international practice and the Aarhus Convention. It determines the cooperation of society and state administrative institutions on environmental issues – the right of access to judicial institutions, the right to request and receive environmental information, and the right to participate in decision-making on environmental issues.
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