Europe is still not building enough wind farms. Slow and cumbersome permitting remains a key hurdle. National Governments were meant to transpose the good new EU permitting rules (from the Renewable Energy Directive) by July 2024. Most of them have still not done so. Or if they have, the implementation has not happened correctly. The EU Commission has started infringement procedures against the offending Governments.
Germany is showing everyone else how it's done. They permitted 15 GW of new onshore wind farms in 2025. That's seven times more than they were permitting five years ago. Overriding Public Interest (OPI) has made a huge difference there. Projects don't end up in court as much as they used to. Permitting authorities feel more comfortable approving projects than they used to.
Other countries need to follow this example. Some are actually using the new EU permitting rules to make things more complicated. A key problem here is that the mapping of Renewables Acceleration Areas, which the new Renewables Directive requires, has made spatial planning even more difficult. Most of Europe's land was already unavailable for wind power with distance rules and nature protection legislation - OK, so be it. But the Acceleration Areas exercise has created even more "no-go areas" which was not the intention of the Directive. On top of that Governments are wasting resources and manpower on mapping exercises when these same resources could and should have been used to permit projects. In some cases Governments have even mapped out areas for wind which don't have a grid connection or good wind conditions.
Germany is not the only country that has transposed Overriding Public Interest into national law. But in some countries that have transposed OPI, the courts then refuse to apply it, which means permits continue to be struck down or get stuck in appeals. The Commission could consider providing further guidance on how OPI needs to be applied in practice - perhaps contacts with and between judges or articles in national legal publications.
Governments also have a lot of work to do still to set up one-stop shops for permitting - they should actually have done this back in 2021 (under a previous version of the EU Renewables Directive). And by November this year under the new Renewables Directive they are legally obliged to fully digitalise their permitting processes. Digitalisation is a great opportunity for countries to streamline and optimise existing procedures. The good news is it's not necessary to reinvent the wheel. Tools such as EasyPermits already exist and WindEurope is working together with national institutions to roll it out.
WindEurope CEO Giles Dickson said: "Come on, Governments. You have to implement the EU rules. What's more, by not implementing them you're missing out. Look how it's worked in Germany - they're now permitting 7x as much wind as 5 years ago. And it's not cost money - they've just put 3 words "overriding public interest" in their laws and made sure the courts apply them. And when you digitalise your permitting, you'll be saving money because you'll be so much more efficient."
