After France, Spain and the Netherlands, Germany will in turn withdraw from the 30-year Energy Charter Treaty, accused of hampering climate ambitions, the German government announced on Friday.
“We constantly orient our trade policy towards climate protection and therefore withdraw from the Energy Charter Treaty,” says Franziska Brantner, Secretary of State for the Ministry of Economy and Climate Protection, in a statement from press.
A treaty signed in 1994
“This is an important signal sent to the United Nations climate conference”, COP 27 which is currently meeting in Sharm el-Sheikh (Egypt), he adds. The parliamentary groups of the member parties of the ruling coalition, Social Democrats, Greens and Liberals, gave the green light this Friday to this exit, proposed by the Government.
At the same time, they agreed to ratify the CETA trade agreement with Canada.
The Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) 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 and regulatory environment affect the profitability of their investments, even when it comes to pro-climate policies.
Spain, Holland and France have also announced their departure
Emblematic case: after the adoption of a Dutch law that prohibits coal by 2030, the German energy company RWE claims 1.4 billion euros from The Hague to compensate for its losses in a thermal power plant.
In September, Italy was ordered to pay 180 million euros in compensation to British oil company Rockhopper for refusing an offshore drilling permit. Lawsuits have also been filed against France by the German company Encavis AG following the modification of the rates for the purchase of photovoltaic electricity in 2020.
Several countries, Spain, the Netherlands and France, have recently announced their withdrawal from the Treaty.
Source: BFM TV
