Germany Says It Won't Agree To CETA With Current Corporate Sovereignty Chapter
from the so-where-does-that-leave-TTIP? dept
This is potentially huge: according to the leading German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, Germany will not accept CETA, the Canadian-EU trade agreement, if it contains a corporate sovereignty chapter in its present form (original in German, pointed out to us by @TeraEuro):
German EU diplomats confirmed in Brussels on Friday that the [German] federal government could not sign the agreement with Canada "as it is now negotiated." Although Germany was, in principle, ready to initial the agreement in September, the chapter on the legal protection of investors is however 'problematic' and currently not acceptable.
This confirms rumors that CETA is finally completed, and that the plan is for the EU member states to "initial" it -- accept it in principle -- in September. However, if Germany really does refuse to sign up with investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) included in its current form, the pressure will be on the European Commission to take it out -- because of the nature of CETA, all 28 EU member states must approve it before it is fully ratified. However, here's what the Commission told Süddeutsche Zeitung regarding that idea:
Without these clauses, the European Commission's trade department says, a Canadian company will hardly invest in Europe. How could an investment in Bulgaria, a country which the European Commission has, so to speak, officially certified for high-level corruption, be justified without legal protection? Or in Italy, where cases before the national courts can last eight to ten years?
But according to the European Commission's own figures, bilateral investment between the EU and Canada is flourishing (pdf): in 2012, the total investment by EU companies in Canada was €258 billion, while Canadian investment in the EU was €115 billion -- 45% of the EU's, even though Canada's population is only 7% that of the EU. In other words, contrary to the European Commission's scaremongering, Canadian companies are clearly perfectly happy to invest in Europe on a massive scale even without ISDS, which is therefore unnecessary, and can be dropped from CETA.
It's therefore not clear how the European Commission will react to this development, and whether it will try to push through the current version of ISDS, attempt to modify it by re-opening negotiations with Canada, or accept that ISDS must go if it wants to save CETA. But what is not in doubt is that this has major ramifications for TAFTA/TTIP. Germany's justified concerns about corporate sovereignty in CETA apply even more strongly to the far-bigger agreement. If it wants ISDS out of one, it will certainly want it out of the other. A refusal by the US to accept that -- quite likely, given its firm support for corporate sovereignty -- would mean that TAFTA/TTIP is dead.
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Filed Under: ceta, corporate sovereignty, germany, investor state dispute settlement, isds, tafta, ttip
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Good start
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And in further news...
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Re: And in further news...
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A good sign?
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Why the change of heart?
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Re: Why the change of heart?
Why a 'Free Trade' agreement is even required is beyond me, I have seen no evidence for these silly agreements. And the fact that they have to lock them up in secrecy for so long just stinks to high heaven!
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Re: Why the change of heart?
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/2014/07/crumbling-ceta-investor-state-dispute-settlement-rules-threa ten-take-canada-eu-trade-agreement/
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Re: Re: Why the change of heart?
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Re: Re: Re: Why the change of heart?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Why the change of heart?
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Re: Why the change of heart?
It would not be the first time that German politicians do a complete turn on some point and claim that they "have always seen ISDS very critically" after realising that something might significantly influence their popularity.
Another example is the "exit from the exit from the exit from nuclear energy" after Fukushima.
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PS: Re: Why the change of heart?
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I'm curious what Germany's reason is for pushing back against corporate sovereignty. I'm sure it's not due to the reason I listed above.
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Those 'minor' clauses put corporations on the same level as governments, effectively able to dictate the laws that could affect them by threatening to sue for massive amounts if something a government does 'harms' their profits, so they are more than willing to throw enormous amounts of money at the various people/groups negotiating the agreements until enough of them are willing to sell out.
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So the thinking behind ISDS has some merit. The problem is that it becomes a ball and chain on even opposition politicians. They have to honour the contracts of the former government even if they had 0 influence on it. I would call that putting the corporation above governments in that instance. As for corruption it wouldn't be impossible for a government likely to lose next election to make some extremely shady deals just to be able to shout at the new government and how they do nothing about it. Add in a few jobs for the friends and you have ISDS protecting corruption...
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lol - good one.
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I disagree. If a country id do corrupt that it dissuades investment, then let it dissuade investment. That, at least, would provide encouragement for the country to reduce corruption.
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i.e. Germany being sued by a Swedish company for billions for pulling out of nuclear power.
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HTML entity gone wrong...
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Thanks Gemany
Well done.
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