The concert "Klassik auf der Insel" has been cancelled for production reasons, Hartz announced. The evening with Andreas Vollenweider and Friends will be moved to the Brückenforum in Bonn-Beuel, where it will begin at 8.30 pm. And: Patti Smith's concert is on Whit Monday at the Palladium in Cologne-Mülheim. It starts at 8.30 p.m. and – unlike the original plan for the island – there will be no seating.

Hartz justified pulling the emergency brake with Thursday’s ruling of the Administrative Court (VG) of Cologne. The court had halted work on setting up the three concerts for nature conservation reasons. "The construction of the stage and the event technology has now had to stand still for a day and a half. Even if there were a positive OVG decision, we would not be able to complete the preparations for the concerts in time. The concerts on Grafenwerth Island at Whitsun will therefore unfortunately not take place as planned," explained the Bonn concert organiser.

The Rhein-Sieg-Kreis, which had filed an appeal against the Cologne court decision on Friday morning, expressed its lack of understanding for the Cologne Administrative Court’s decision. The chamber, in turn, had only sent it on Thursday evening at around 9 pm. "The Rhein-Sieg-Kreis has always taken the concerns of species protection into account and, after conscientious examination and consideration, has come to the conclusion that the events can be held - subject to detailed conditions," said Antonius Nolden, spokesman for the Rhein-Sieg-Kreis.

Based on claims by the nature protection organisation BUND, experts from the district's Office for Environmental Protection and Nature Conservation had visited Grafenwerth Island again for the last time on Thursday. "But the dangers cited by BUND were not verified," Nolden explained. That is why the district had also filed an appeal against the judge's decision from Cologne. "In the end, it is unfortunately always more difficult to prove that there is no threat than to claim that there is," said the spokesperson.

There was confusion on Friday as to whether the Cologne court might have argued on the basis of incorrect information in its ruling on Thursday. As the Administrative Court explained, concert organiser Hartz had applied for a case-by-case review on 3 March, but only with the city of Bad Honnef. "The form used for this purpose indicated that for events on the island, it was mandatory to additionally apply for a permit from the Rhein-Sieg-Kreis. But the organiser did not apply for the permit," the court explained. However, according to an e-mail obtained by the General-Anzeiger, on 2 March the organiser sent his documents by e-mail to the following distribution list: the city of Bad Honnef, the public order office of Bad Honnef and the office for environmental and nature protection of the Rhine-Sieg district.

The Administrative Court describes the further course of events as follows: At the end of March 2022, BUND asked the district about the state of affairs. The environmental association had already sent the same request to the district administration in August 2021. The starting point of the situation, according to the Administrative Court, was a meeting in May 2018 about the planned series of events on the island of Grafenwerth, at which representatives of the district had explained to the organiser that he would have to apply to the district for an exemption from the prohibitions of the landscape protection area ordinance.

At the beginning of April this year, the district informed BUND that it assumed that a permit was not necessary. The environmental association then contacted the NRW Ministry of the Environment and the district and demanded that the permit procedure be carried out. According to the VG, these letters remained unanswered. As a result, on 24 May, the VG, following an urgent application by BUND, ordered the district to prohibit the events because the necessary permit had not been applied for and granted. It was then, according to the court, that the organiser applied "for the first time to the district for permission for the concerts in June", which was granted on 30 May 2022.

And: The VG had further justified its ruling by stating that protected assets of nature conservation law could be irreversibly lost if the concerts took place, explained Leonie Galler, deputy press spokesperson of the VG. In contrast, the economic interests of the organiser were less worthy of protection, she reported. The organiser had already advertised the concerts and sold tickets in 2021. "At that time, however, he had not even applied for an exceptional permit to hold the concerts," Galler said. "All the financial obligations he had entered into before the necessary permits were taken were at his own risk," said the VG spokesperson. If all the concerts were actually cancelled, a six-figure sum would remain as damage, concert organiser Ernst-Ludwig Hartz had told the GA.

(Original text: Mario Quadt; Translation: Jean Lennox)