The Environment and Food Complaints Board has put a temporary stop to the significant Baltic Pipe project, which will transport billions of cubic meters of gas from Norwegian gas fields through Denmark to Poland.
It writes the state-owned Energinet, which builds and operates energy supply, on its website.
Otherwise, environmental approval was given in 2019 for the project, and the construction work is in full swing.
However, the Appeals Board has revoked the approval, as it has found that it has not investigated well enough how wildlife is protected during the work.
– We are very surprised that the permit has been revoked. This is completely new to us. Right now we are getting an overview of what this means for the project and how we get a new permit, says Marian Kaagh, Deputy Director of Energinet, in the announcement.
She says that the approval was given with the proviso that further work should be done to “ensure good living conditions for, among others, the hazel mice, birch mice and bats” that live where the line is to be built.
However, the Appeals Board has assessed that those plans should have been in place before the approval was given.
The consequences for the project must now be evaluated. And work on the gas pipeline will be stopped during that period.
According to the plans, the gas pipeline, whose purpose is, among other things, to reduce the Baltic countries’ and Eastern Europe’s dependence on Russian gas, will run across Denmark from Blåbjerg north of Esbjerg to Faxe Bay.
Work on the project is already in full swing.
– We’re pretty far. The work on Zealand is almost complete, and this year construction was to start in earnest on Funen and Jutland, says Marian Kaagh.
She says that the total project costs up to 16 billion kroner, of which Energinet must pay about half.
– Of that money, we have already entered into contracts for about 90 percent of the total.
– I consider this here a temporary pause. Now we must have made some new assessments that will form the basis for a new permit, says the deputy director.
At the Unity List, energy rapporteur Søren Egge Rasmussen believes that the break should be an opportunity to drop the entire project, despite the fact that billions have already been invested in it.
– We are dealing with something that belongs to the fossil age. I understand very well that Poland wants to become independent of Russia. But this project should be stopped.
– We have never had a political treatment of it because the minister has been able to decide it alone, he says.