Published: 4 August 2025. Written by Maiju Mähönen.
Litigation across the EU addressing governments’ obligations to prepare climate plans is increasing. While much of this has focused on plans required by national law, less attention has been given to those mandated by EU law. Among the most significant are the national energy and climate plans (NECPs), the primary tool for Member States to demonstrate how they will help achieve the EU’s climate and energy targets. This blog post explores a key issue in NECP-related litigation: the extent to which judicial review can assess the ambition of these plans against the EU’s climate and energy targets.
NECPs: A Cornerstone of EU Climate Governance, Yet Riddled with Challenges
The NECPs are a crucial tool in delivering on the European Green Deal. The obligation to regularly prepare and update these plans is laid down in the Governance Regulation, which concerns the planning, reporting and monitoring of EU climate and energy policy. It sets out procedural obligations for Member States aimed at ensuring the attainment of EU-level 2030 climate and energy targets, including those enshrined in the European Climate Law. The NECPs are the main tool for the Member States to showcase their contribution to these targets by specifying how they intend to meet the greenhouse gas reductions and removals required by key EU climate and energy laws. If a plan is deemed insufficient, the European Commission can issue recommendations, but these remain non-binding. Generally, despite their importance, the NECPs have been criticised for lacking in sufficient detail and ambition and for falling short in implementing the Commission’s recommendations. For instance in 2024, nearly all Member States missed the deadline to submit their final NECP updates. In 2023, the Commission had already flagged the draft updates as inadequate for achieving the EU’s 2030 climate targets. This also prompted the European Scientific Advisory Board on Climate Change to call on national governments to urgently strengthen their plans, along with NGOs such as CAN Europe.
Diverging Approaches in National Litigation
Several NGOs have turned to the Commission, urging it to launch infringement proceedings against the NECPs of France, Germany, Ireland, Italy and Sweden and more recently also Bulgaria, Cyprus and Malta. Since the Commission has full discretion over whether to act on these complaints, the next steps of these proceedings remain uncertain. Meanwhile, national courts provide an alternative avenue for addressing the adequacy of NECPs under EU law.
While litigation concerning NECPs has taken place in some national courts, NECPs themselves have been the primary focus of disputes in only two cases so far. In one instance, the Supreme Court of Spain declined to review the ambition level of Spain’s NECP, citing, among other things, concerns about the separation of powers. This reluctance may have stemmed, in part, from the applicants’ argument that Spain’s national climate target enshrined in the NECP failed to align with the Paris Agreement, rather than focusing on the NECP’s compliance with EU law. Conversely, a case currently pending before the Berlin-Brandenburg Higher Administrative Court challenges the adequacy of Germany’s updated NECP against the EU’s 2030 climate targets, rendering it potentially more likely to succeed as it centres on EU law requirements. Generally, experiences with national litigation thus far showcase varying approaches among national courts regarding the justiciability of NECP-related claims.
Who should be entitled to challenge NECPs in court?
Scholars and NGOs have called for incorporating an access to justice provision into the European Climate Law or the Governance Regulation, amongst other enabling judicial review of NECPs. The absence of such a provision is however not the primary obstacle to NECP-related litigation. Under the Aarhus Convention and CJEU case law on access to justice in environmental matters, standing to challenge NECPs should arguably already be a given for environmental NGOs. A similarly favourable approach does not apply equally to other associations or individual citizens, as Member States retain more discretion in determining their standing.
Nonetheless, the significant negative impacts of climate change on human health provide arguments in favour of extending standing to these groups as well, supported by CJEU case law in areas like air quality. Additionally, the KlimaSeniorinnen judgment of the European Court of Human Rights may bolster claims that Member States’ NECPs are not in line with the requirements of the EU Charter, which ought to offer protection equivalent to that of the European Convention on Human Rights. While current CJEU case law does not explicitly support challenges to NECPs based on EU Charter rights, the preliminary reference procedure could help clarify how the EU Charter applies in the context of NECPs, as Kelleher and Daly highlight.
Aligning NECPs with the EU’s climate and energy targets: Lessons from the CJEU
Preparing NECPs involves not only procedural but also substantive requirements. While Member States enjoy broad discretion in drafting the plans, CJEU case law confirms that this discretion is constrained by the requirements and objectives of the Governance Regulation and may ultimately be reviewed by national courts. One of the most complex challenges lies in determining whether a NECP is sufficiently ambitious in relation to the EU’s climate and energy targets. The CJEU has indicated that measures in plans and programmes mandated by EU environmental law must in reality be capable of achieving the objectives of the applicable EU law. A central challenge lies in the fact that the EU’s 2030 targets, such as the 55 % greenhouse gas emissions reduction goal, are collective in nature. Some legal scholars argue that this lack of binding national targets, combined with the broad discretion allowed under the Governance Regulation, leaves the Regulation’s effectiveness heavily reliant on the goodwill of Member States.
By contrast, it can be argued that the Governance Regulation’s substantive requirements for NECPs establish a basis for determining their adequacy, even in the absence of binding national targets. A clear breach of discretion under the regulation might for instance occur if a NECP relies on fundamentally flawed methodologies or assumptions, undermining the credibility of the Member State’s projected emissions reductions or removals. Notably, the compatibility of national climate plans with climate targets has already been successfully reviewed by some national courts. For example, the Supreme Court of Ireland has ruled that Ireland’s national climate plan violated its climate change framework law by failing to provide a sufficiently clear pathway to achieve its long-term target. Similarly, the Berlin-Brandenburg Higher Administrative Court has ordered the German Federal Government to revise its 2023 Climate Protection Program, amongst other citing poor alignment with climate targets and unrealistic assumptions. Drawing on CJEU jurisprudence and national case law, courts should feel confident in scrutinizing whether the content of NECPs is aligned with EU targets, with the option of requesting a preliminary reference from the CJEU. In the absence of such review, there is a risk that the plans become merely a box-checking exercise, failing to make a meaningful contribution to curbing the climate crisis within the EU.
This blog post is based on a recently published article: Maiju Mähönen: Citizens’ Access to Justice in EU Climate Governance: Judicial Review of NECPs before National Courts
Maiju Mähönen is a doctoral researcher at the University of Finland, the Center for Climate Change, Energy and Environmental Law (CCEEL).