Court in The Hague annuls Schiphol's nature permit

The district court in The Hague has decided to scrap Schiphol’s nature permit. According to the court, the permit, which was issued by the Cabinet in September 2023, was "not prepared with the required care and not sufficiently motivated.” The case was initiated by various environmental organizations, the municipal council of Nieuwkoop in Zuid-Holland, and the Amsterdam college of Mayor and Alderman.

Environmental organizations argued that the permit was issued in error. It temporarily granted Schiphol the right to half a million flight movements annually, to be reduced later by 60,000 flights. The environmental groups still believe 440,000 flights to be far too many. It seems to be the case that Schiphol will not have to stop flights instantly. However, the government will have to take action to make sure that they obtain the right documents.

To try to increase flexibility, Schiphol spent 17 million euros buying up farmland in the area over the past few years to gain more nitrogen emissions credits in the hope of offsetting the airport’s own emissions. The airport believed this was what they needed to secure the permit.

One of the plaintiffs, Mobilization for the Environment (MOB) has already spent years advocating the issue of environmental damage linked to air traffic. During the court hearing last year, nitrogen deposition calculations were hotly debated, including the years used to set baselines for the data, the environmental impact of sulphur dioxide, and also noise calculations.

Schiphol said it went through the same process for obtaining the nature permit that other companies face, and denied that former Nature and Nitrogen Emissions Minister Christianne van der Wal relaxed the rules to make it easier for the airport. Already last year, the court said that Schiphol’s request for a permit should have also determined if the farmland nitrogen credits were first needed to restore nature areas.

The court ruled that the then Minister of Nature and Nitrogen should have motivated in the calculation that sufficient measures had been taken to protect vulnerable nature areas. The fact that this did not happen can be explained. This requirement has only been in force since a ruling by the Council of State at the end of last year. But according to the court, this motivation should still have followed in the period thereafter.

Schiphol are also at fault for doing insufficient research on the effects that the increase in noise would have one the animals near the Schiphol area.

The airport has stated that they plan to appeal the decision. "This ruling will not have any effect on the number of flights to and from Schiphol in the short term," he added. Schiphol will now speak to Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, Food Security, and Nature, while they begin working on a new permit application, a spokesperson has said.

BARIN, the interest group for Dutch airlines, thinks that the ruling is disastrous. "The court's ruling creates ongoing uncertainty," chairman Marnix Fruitema said. He had already hoped that Schiphol would appeal the decision.