Complaint accuses EU of hiding data centres’ energy and water use

They classified it under the Aarhus Convention, a binding treaty that grants people the right to access environmental information and to participate in environmental decision-making; the EU joined it in 2005.

The complaint states that the Commission has created a ‘wall of silence’ around the sector, claiming that EU officials intended to prevent access to data on data center performance and have made the little data provided difficult to read.

Moreover, the dispute stems from a 2024 law that prohibits Brussels and the national capitals from sharing data on individual sites.