Toward the end of June, Eddy Bruyninckx, the director of the Antwerp Port Authority, admitted for the first time ever in the media that the port will not need a new container terminal -- which would wipe Doel off the map for ever -- for many more years, thus making the government's plans to destroy the village anyway all the more senseless in the eyes of public opinion.

On 13 July, the media reported that the Court of Appeal confirmed an earlier ruling by the court of first instance that the destruction of Doel was/is against the law. The court also extended the current inhabitants' right to live in Doel until next Spring.