Fridays for Future Estonia v. Eesti Energia

In the case of Friday for Future Estonia v Eesti Energia, a youth-led NGO filed a claim contesting the grant of a permit to construct an oil plant, claiming that it was in breach of international obligations to mitigate climate change.

By Clara Egler

Case Information:

Country: Estonia

Court(s): Tartu Administrative Court (1st instance); Administrative Board of Tartu District Court (2nd instance); Supreme Court of Estonia (3rd instance)

Unanimous/majority decision: After the rejection of the request for preliminary legal protection from the applicants, the Supreme Court decided on the matters of the claim and cancelled the construction permit for a shale oil plant in October 2023.

Filing Date: 2020

Last Update: 2023

Status: Decided

ISSUES

Whether issuing a permit to construct an oil plant by an Estonian town violated the  country’s international commitment to mitigate climate change.[1] 

MATERIAL FACTS/BACKGROUND

The claim was filed in April 2020 by MTÜ Loodusvõlu, an NGO founded by Fridays for Future activists from Estonia,[2] against a permit granted by the town of Narva-Jõesuu for the construction of the ENEFIT282 oil plant issued in March 2020. This permit was granted to Eesti Energia, a state-owned energy company that planned to construct a shale oil plant. Although the activists appealed to the Estonian Prime Minister to prevent this construction, they were unsuccessful. They thereby opted to file a claim against the energy company to rescind the permit and halt the construction of the oil plant.[3] 

THE ARGUMENTS OF THE PARTIES

1. The claimants’ main arguments are as follows.

In April 2020, the young activists claimed that:

• Constructing a new shale oil plant was against the Estonian government’s  international commitments, particularly under the Paris Agreement, the climate neutrality goal of the European Union, and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. 
• The impacts of this new oil plan were only partially evaluated, while the environmental impact assessment provided during its planning phase failed to indicate, inter alia, the effects of the construction and the functioning of the oil plant on human health.[4]
• The construction of the oil plant would inevitably impact global and Estonian climate goals, and damage the health and well-being of the Estonian population and its environment.[5] 

Therefore, the claimants requested for the cancellation of the permit granted to Eesti Energia by the Tartu Administrative Court. In addition, the authors applied for interim relief to provisionally suspend the construction permit until the conclusion of the judgement of their claim.[6]

After the provisional suspension of the building permit was dismissed, the claimants also argued that the construction of the building itself already breached the international obligations of the Estonian government. If the cancellation were granted later in the case, there would be no use for the constructed building; this would thereby waste the taxpayers’ money spent by the government to build the oil plant.[7] The appeal was subsequently dismissed.

In February 2021, the authors submitted another application for interim relief for the provisional suspension of the oil plant construction since there were new developments in relation to the case. They asserted that:

• The construction site was located near a Natura 2000 network priority conservation area—the Black River Natural Reserve. 
• A Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) report on the construction was produced as per requirements under the Natura 2000 framework. However, it lacked clarity on the effects of the building on the environment and the efficiency of a zone of 150 meters between the plant and the Reserve.
• The impacts of the energy company’s activities were purely theoretical when the report was being written. However, since the commencement of the construction of the oil plant would translate these theoretical risks into reality, this necessitated the provisional suspension of the permit.
• Partial drainage of the construction site, alongside other impacts, might affect the Natura 2000 area.
• According to the jurisprudence of the Court of Justice of the European Union, the precautionary principle should be applied in this case as the construction posed potential risks to the Natura 2000 area.[8] 

The authors supplemented their claims by requesting a declaration of the illegality of a decision made by the Ministry of the Environment that approved the construction of the oil plant, based on the previously mentioned SEA report and the subsequent town of Narva-Jõesuu’s approval of the oil plant plan. Therefore, the claimants argued that if the approval of the oil plant was unlawful, then the permit should be cancelled.[9]

In May 2022, the claimants filed an additional complaint and another request for interim relief for the suspension of oil plant permit. The claimants brought new facts to their demand, informing the Administrative Court that in April 2022, the Estonian Environmental Protection Agency initiated an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) on the oil plant. 

In its preliminary assessment, the EIA report highlighted the need to examine the interactions between the new oil plant and the conservation of the Puhatu bird, a type of bird protected in the Puhatu Nature Reserve, a part of the Natura 2000 network located around 8 km from the construction site of the plant.

Therefore, the Environmental Protection Agency initiated the EIA given the incomplete previous SEA report that failed to thoroughly assess the impacts of:

• The treatment of phenol water;
• The emission of specific pollutants;
• Climate change; and
• The previously mentioned Natura sites. 

The authors then repeated their request for the provisional suspension of the construction to further prevent damages still being studied by the Agency. They stressed that the greater the advancement of the construction, the greater the irreversibility of its impacts, and when the building is finished, the demolition process would be highly demandable.[10] Furthermore, the authors argued that it would be easier to grant a permit to another energy provider once the construction was completed. Ultimately, the environmental and climate impacts they were trying to prevent would continue occuring.[11] 

2. The defendants’ main arguments are as follows

The defendants were two subsidiaries of Eesti Energia, Enefit Energiaootmine AS and Enefit Kaevandused, and the town of Narva-Jõesuu. Regarding the provisional request for the suspension of the construction permit of the oil plant, they argued that since the oil plant would only begin operations in 2024, there was no need to suspend the construction. This was because the adverse effects to climate and human health the claimants identified would only occur upon the commencement of the plant’s operations, rather than at the time of the filing of the claim.[12]

The Ministry of the Environment asserted that the international commitments of the Estonian government did not directly prohibit it from prioritising  its domestic  economic policies and taking actions such as constructing a new oil plant. Thus, the Ministry held that the claimants’ argument was overly general and unfounded.[13]

When the claimants appealed the decision that dismissed their request for provisional suspension, the town of Narva-Jõesuu argued that it was not a party to the Paris Agreement. The Eesti Energia subsidiary claimed that the SEA report concluded that the emissions of the power plant were still predicted to be below levels that are harmful to human health. The subsidiary additionally posited that the distance of the plant to the Reserve — 700 meters — was sufficient to prevent any adverse effects. The Ministry of the Environment reiterated that the SEA report adequately assessed the environmental impacts of the oil plant activities.[14] The Ministry also asserted  that the new oil plant would be part of the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) and, therefore, regulated by a market-based mechanism of greenhouse gas emissions control.[15]

THE JUDGEMENT

1. In May 2020, the Tartu Administrative Court admitted the authors’ claim. Nevertheless, it dismissed the interim relief request for the provisional suspension of the permit, thereby allowing the energy company to proceed with the construction of the oil plant. The Court recognised the legitimacy of MTÜ Loodusvõlu as a youth environmental NGO to pursue the claim. However, the Court argued that the claimants failed to provide any evidence of the supposedly adverse effects of the construction. Since only evidence of the plant’s functioning was provided, and that the plant would only start operating in 2024, the provisional suspension of the permit was not necessary at that moment.[16]
2. The claimants appealed the decision of the Administrative Court in June 2020, and the Administrative Board of Tartu District Court judged its request in July 2020. The District Court argued that the claimants had failed to submit any new information to support their claim for provisional permit suspension. They agreed with the decision made at first instance thereby dismissing the author’s appeal.[17]
3. In March 2021, based on a new application for interim relief for the provisional suspension of the permit filed by the authors, the Tartu Administrative Court once again dismissed their claim. The Court held that the arguments presented by the Ministry of the Environment were deemed expert opinions that ensured that there were no potential negative impacts to the Natura 2000 area. Hence, the requested provisional measures were not necessary.[18]
4. The authors appealed this decision. In May 2021, the Administrative Board of Tartu District Court admitted their claim and granted the claimants interim relief for the provisional suspension of the permit. The District Court also argued that the Court of first instance accorded excessive weight to the Ministry’s opinion, since the government organ was a party to the case. Moreover, it admitted the authors’ claim that the SEA report was unclear on the impacts of the oil plant on the conservation area and that the precautionary principle should be considered. The District Court then suspended the oil plant’s construction until the case’s conclusion.[19]
5. In addition, the claimants requested an amendment to their claim to declare the decisions of the Ministry of the Environment and the town of Narva-Jõesuu to approve the permit based on the above-mentioned deficient SEA report illegal. In July 2021, the Tartu Administrative Court dismissed the claimants’ request for amendment and accepted a third-party intervention, affirming that the construction activities would not affect the Reserve and there was therefore no need to suspend them. The Administrative Court then revoked the provisional suspension of the oil plant’s construction. The claimants filed an appeal against this decision, which was dismissed in September 2021.[20]
6. In May 2022, the authors filed an additional complaint and another request for interim relief for the suspension of the permit of the oil plant based on the new facts listed above. Nevertheless, the Administrative Court dismissed their request once again. Despite an appeal from the authors, the Tartu District Court confirmed the first instance’s decision in June 2022. While the District Court acknowledged that the claimants’ concerns were reasonable and that the plant’s construction was already harming the environment and the climate, it ultimately considered the interim relief request unjustified.[21]
7. The authors then filed a cassation appeal to the Supreme Court in July 2022, requesting once again for interim relief and the annulment of the District Court’s decision. The claimants reaffirmed the reason for suspending the permit based on the EIA being held by the Environmental Protection Agency. In August 2022, while the Supreme Court rejected the authors’ appeal and request for interim relief, it admitted that their claim could be successful. The Supreme Court acknowledged the presence of significant legal and factual ambiguity in the case. Moreover, the Court argued that suspending the works at the moment of the decision would significantly impact the budget and work contracts of those involved in the construction of the plant. Lastly, the Court held that as the suspension did not happen before construction started, there was no reason to suspend it.[22]
8. Finally, in October 2023, the Supreme Court judged the merits of the cassation appeal and cancelled the permit to construct the oil plant.[23] The Court agreed with the claimants that the impacts of the treatment of phenol water on climate change and the Puhatu bird conservation were unidentified during the grant of the construction permit. In applying the precautionary principle for environmental protection, the Court thus held that the failure of these assessments to consider these relevant environmental consequences of the plant’s activities necessitated the cancellation of the permit.
   
   The Court allowed the necessary construction activities to continue for two months to guarantee the safety and preservation of the already-built area. The energy company would subsequently be obliged to proceed with its application for a construction permit, although the previously mentioned environmental risks must be assessed and cleared for the possibility of resumption of the construction. The Supreme Court also recommended considering the most recent binding European Union targets on climate neutrality, since they were not in force when the claim was filed in 2020 but became legally binding  (by the European Climate Law) in 2021.[24]

Please find the full judgement and other relevant case documents here. Last edited on 14 January 2025, with special thanks to the case editor Beatrijs Gelders.

The judgments can be accessed via this website: https://www.riigiteataja.ee/kohtulahendid/halduskohtumenetlus.htm, by searching the number 3-20-771.

Here are the links for the specific translated judgements in our drive:

• Judgement of 08.07.2020 – Case n. 3-20-771.30 
  Judgement of 08.07.2020 – Case n. 3-20-771.30 (English (British)).pdf

• Judgement of 07.05.2021 – Case n. 3-20-771.44
  Judgement of 07.05.2021 – Case n. 3-20-771.44 .pdf (English (British)).pdf

• Judgement of 14.06.2022 – Case n. 3-20-771.91
  Judgement of 14.06.2022 – Case n. 3-20-771.91 .pdf (English (British)).pdf

• Judgement of 25.08.2022 – Case n. 3-20-771.92
  Judgement of 25.08.2022 – Case n. 3-20-771.92 .pdf (English (British)).pdf
  
• Judgement of 11.10.2023 – Case n. 3-20-771.103
  Judgement of 11.10.2023 – Case n. 3-20-771.103 .pdf (English (British)).pdf

REFERENCES