TKG Amendment Act 2025 to promote rapid grid expansion

Marc Salevic and Benedict Beierle, telecommunications experts at Pinsent Masons, were commenting after the Bundestag and Bundesrat approved the change. The TKG now stipulates that the laying and modification of telecommunications lines for the expansion of public telecommunications networks by 31 December 2030 is in the overriding public interest.

Salevic said: “The amendment means that projects for the expansion of the telecommunications network will be given priority in approval procedures when weighing up the different interests. This is intended to make an important contribution to accelerating the approval procedures for the construction of new mobile communications systems and the laying of fibre optics.”

As a rule, various public interests have to be weighed against each other in approval processes. For example, nature conservation must be taken into account in the content of building permits. The balancing of considerations is often complex and involves a high level of justification with decisions in these cases often not clearly classifiable as lawful or unlawful. This, in turn, has often led to lengthy proceedings with an uncertain outcome. These difficulties are largely superfluous when an overriding public interest is opposed to a “simple” public interest. In these cases, the balancing decisions must be made in favour of the overriding public interest, and thus in favour of grid expansion projects in the future.

Beierle said: “The scope of the amendment is likely to become apparent in the near future in approval processes, as shown by the experience in 2022 after changes to the Renewable Energy Sources Act, when the construction and operation of renewable energy plants were declared an overriding public interest.”

“With this amendment, the government is sending a clear signal to accelerate network expansion. This is particularly evident in the fact that they recent change has already been enacted as standalone measure,” said Salevic.

The government plans to introduce a broader and more comprehensive amened to the TKG covering various topics later this year.