France will withdraw from the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT), a 30-year international agreement highly protective of private investment in fossil fuels, President Emmanuel Macron announced on Friday.
“France has decided to withdraw from the Energy Charter Treaty, which was an important point requested by many,” the head of state said on the sidelines of a European summit in Brussels. This treaty is supposed to apply for another twenty years after the withdrawal of a signatory country.
A text that harms decarbonization trajectories
In an opinion issued this Wednesday, the High Council for Climate (HCC), a French advisory body, considered that this text undermines the commitment of the signatory countries “on a path of decarbonization of their respective energy sectors by 2030 and at the height of the ambition of the Paris Agreement”.
The Energy Charter Treaty was signed in 1994, at the end of the Cold War, to offer guarantees to investors from Eastern European countries and the former USSR.
Bringing together the EU and some fifty countries, it allows companies to claim, before a private arbitration court, compensation from a State whose decisions affect the profitability of their investments, even when it comes to pro-climate policies.
Source: BFM TV
