This is an “important point requested by many”, noted the Head of State in Brussels.
It was a request from environmental associations. At the end of the European Council, which took place over two days in Brussels, Emmanuel Macron announced that France had decided to withdraw from the “energy charter treaty“. A “important point asked by many“, and a decision taken after technical checks by the competent services, specified the Head of State.
Reacting to the presidential announcement, the Minister for Energy Transition, Agnès Pannier-Runacher, hailed a “strong decision consistent with our climate commitments“. The text “was no longer compatible“With these, she also judged. A “fair and strong decision“, commented Bruno Le Maire, when Laurence Boone welcomed a “excellent news“. On the left, elected officials also welcomed this announcement: “Government’s economic ideology fails to cut emissions, but decision to be welcomed“Wrote MP (LFI) Alma Dufour. Her MEP colleague Manon Aubry for her part underlined a “huge victory for the planet against fossil companies“.
The EU and around fifty countries
This text was signed by France in 1994, then ratified in 1999. It aimed to promote cooperation in the energy sector, as well as to protect the investments of energy companies abroad, in this case in the legally unstable ex-USSR. Objective : “strengthen the security of energy supply and maximize the efficiency of the production, transformation, transport, distribution and use of energy, in order to improve security conditions and limit the environmental problems as much as possible, under acceptable economic conditions“. Among the signatories are almost all European states, Japan and Turkey.
However, many environmental players were worried about the consequences of this text, seeing it as an instrument allowing gas and oil companies to turn against the States of the European Union to obtain compensation in the event of a reversal of their energy policy. The German RWE, for example, attacked the Netherlands before an arbitration court, which accelerated its exit from coal. RWE claims 1.4 billion euros.
In an opinion issued in recent hours, the High Council for the Climate noted that the treaty “includes a dispute settlement mechanism allowing investors to resort to international arbitration against the signatory States, in particular in the event of unilateral modification of their legislative or regulatory frameworks in the energy sector“. In other words, a modification not going in the direction of these investors could be challenged and lead to compensation. A “loss of sovereignty“incompatible with the”energy sector decarbonization timelines“, regretted the High Council.
This advisory body therefore pleaded for France to withdraw from the Treaty. An imperative also noted in a forum by other associations, including France Nature environnement, the Confédération paysanne or Attac: “The TCE considerably weakens the ability of public authorities to ensure both the energy and climate security of populations […]. It is more than necessary that the French government announces to vote against this new TCE and, following the example of other European countries such as Spain, withdraws from the TCE“, hammered the organizations in this text. The announcement was also welcomed by Attac, on social networks.
A withdrawal of several European states
In recent weeks, under pressure from environmentalists, several states have already withdrawn from the treaty. Following the example of Rome a few years earlier, Warsaw and Madrid have made this decision in the last two months. “We have therefore decided to withdraw from the treaty, knowing that the delays for the departure to be effective can take a year and a half.“Said AFP the Spanish Minister in charge of Ecological Transition, Teresa Ribera. Same thing for the Netherlands, a few days later. For its part, the European Commission has been working for more than five years to modernize the text.
But, if it is reviled by environmental associations, this treaty allowed the shareholders of the oil group Yukos, founded by Mikhail Khodorkovsky, to attack the Russian State for illegal expropriation. And to obtain a historic arbitration award condemning Russia to pay 50 billion dollars. This extraordinary procedure is still in progress, the compensation has not been paid.
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