In the legal dispute over the evacuation of the Hambach Forest three years ago, the city of Kerpen must now apply for an appeal.

The North Rhine-Westphalian building ministry had issued an instruction, said a spokesman for the city on Thursday.

In September 2018, the police cleared the forest occupied by climate protection activists.

The Hambacher Forst lies on the edge of an open-cast lignite mine and was supposed to be cleared at that time.

The CDU-led NRW state government had instructed the city of Kerpen and the Düren district to clear the tree houses built by opponents of lignite.

This was justified with fire protection.

In September of this year, however, the Cologne Administrative Court found that the fire protection justification had only been advanced at the time.

The eviction was therefore unlawful. The city of Kerpen initially wanted to contest this decision and applied for permission to appeal to the Higher Administrative Court in Münster.

On Tuesday evening, however, the Kerpen city council voted with a narrow majority to forego it, i.e. not to apply for an appeal.

Dispute goes to the next instance

But now the situation looks different again: "The district administrator of the Rhein-Erft district as the supervisory authority has been requested by the ministry to give the Kolping town of Kerpen instructions that the Kolping town of Kerpen not withdraw the application for an appeal - contrary to the council resolution we had Tuesday this week, ”said a spokesman for the city of Kerpen.

So the case should come before the Higher Administrative Court.

Building Minister Ina Scharrenbach, from whose house the instruction comes, belongs to the CDU.

Like Prime Minister Armin Laschet (also CDU), who has since resigned, she had repeatedly denied that reasons other than fire protection played the decisive role in the evacuation.

The forest not far from Cologne is located in the Rhenish lignite district, where the electricity company RWE operates several coal-fired power plants.

In addition to the mostly peaceful demonstrations, there were occasional clashes between climate activists and the security authorities.