France Becomes Latest Country To Leave Controversial Energy Charter Treaty (theguardian.com) 50
France has become the latest country to pull out of the controversial energy charter treaty (ECT), which protects fossil fuel investors from policy changes that might threaten their profits. The Guardian reports: Speaking after an EU summit in Brussels on Friday, French president, Emmanuel Macron, said: "France has decided to withdraw from the energy charter treaty." Quitting the ECT was "coherent" with the Paris climate deal, he added. Macron's statement follows a recent vote by the Polish parliament to leave the 52-nation treaty and announcements by Spain and the Netherlands that they too wanted out of the scheme.
The European Commission has proposed a "modernization" of the agreement, which would end the writ of the treaty's secret investor-state courts between EU members. That plan is expected to be discussed at a meeting in Mongolia next month. A French government official said Paris would not try to block the modernization blueprint within the EU or at the meeting in Mongolia. "But whatever happens, France is leaving," the official said. While France was "willing to coordinate a withdrawal with others, we don't see that there is a critical mass ready to engage with that in the EU bloc as a whole," the official added.
The French withdrawal will take about a year to be completed, and in that time, discussion in Paris will likely move on to ways of neutralizing or reducing the duration of a "sunset clause" in the ECT that allows retrospective lawsuits. Progress on that issue is thought possible by sources close to ongoing legal negotiations on the issue.
The European Commission has proposed a "modernization" of the agreement, which would end the writ of the treaty's secret investor-state courts between EU members. That plan is expected to be discussed at a meeting in Mongolia next month. A French government official said Paris would not try to block the modernization blueprint within the EU or at the meeting in Mongolia. "But whatever happens, France is leaving," the official said. While France was "willing to coordinate a withdrawal with others, we don't see that there is a critical mass ready to engage with that in the EU bloc as a whole," the official added.
The French withdrawal will take about a year to be completed, and in that time, discussion in Paris will likely move on to ways of neutralizing or reducing the duration of a "sunset clause" in the ECT that allows retrospective lawsuits. Progress on that issue is thought possible by sources close to ongoing legal negotiations on the issue.
I have never understood this... (Score:1)
Well, how does one explain how whole developed countries can agree to "shooting themselves in the foot" by supporting measures that guarantee high inflation, anger from citizenry due to the high cost of everything; blindness to how the world hegemon is playing them to "his own benefit" by supporting sanctions.
The same world hegemon has done even worse in the past; responsible for chaos, loss of life and mayhem in many lands; not to mention the frivolous reasons fronted for the senseless wars...I could go on
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:1)
More like extortion. The cartels are in charge
Re: (Score:3)
how does one explain how whole developed countries can agree to "shooting themselves in the foot" by supporting measures that guarantee high inflation,
It's quite simple, the loss of wealth is preferable to the alternative.
Re: (Score:3)
Well, how does one explain how whole developed countries can agree to "shooting themselves in the foot" by supporting measures that guarantee high inflation
Because we don't have a magic crystal ball to see the future.
The Energy Charter Treaty was signed in 1991, long before the war in Ukraine and Covid.
anger from citizenry due to the high cost of everything
Yet these same citizens were happy to get their Covid stimulus checks.
Re: (Score:2)
Because we don't have a magic crystal ball to see the future.
Don't need to see the future when the same thing has already happened in the past. I.e. printing lots of money => inflation. Whodathunkit!?!
Yet these same citizens were happy to get their Covid stimulus checks.
The French citizens didn't get a general one - just replacement salaries for losing work. Many industries got their share of a few billion euros though.
Re:I have never understood this... (Score:4, Informative)
Don't need to see the future when the same thing has already happened in the past. I.e. printing lots of money => inflation. Whodathunkit!?!
But there were many times that printing lots of money didn't lead to inflation. QE1 and QE2 following the 2008 financial crisis put trillions into the economy and inflation was near zero. Japan had expansionist monetary policies for a generation while prices and wages fell.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
But there were many times that printing lots of money didn't lead to inflation.
Not many.
The full equation is MV = PQ, and although the money supply (M) was rising after 2008, the V was shrinking to match.
Re: (Score:1)
V is not value. Learn to use a search engine.
Re: (Score:2)
It did lead to inflation. Share prices and house prices have been shooting upwards for a long time - though not in Japan - your country's mileage may vary. It took time for those prices to reach other goods. The war in Ukraine was one of the triggers that caused money to be pulled out of stocks, where it was then able to increase money supply in the general economy. If the QE had made its way to consumer hands directly, then measured inflation would have gone up sooner.
In Japan, people have been steadfast
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Yet these same citizens were happy to get their Covid stimulus checks.
And frankly, even if you told them it would result in inflation, they would likely still take their stimulus checks.
Re:I have never understood this... (Score:4, Interesting)
Yet these same citizens were happy to get their Covid stimulus checks.
And frankly, even if you told them it would result in inflation, they would likely still take their stimulus checks.
Of course. If someone is not working, they will be happy to take some money to live off of.
It didn't take a rocket surgeon to understand that there would be inflationary tendencies after we started coming out of the Covid-19 hardships.
Aside from demand pressure, there is startup shortages, and let's not forget that there is the slow inflationary creep that happens anyhow, so there is 2 years of that. Coupled with the so called free money, here we are.
The strange thing is, if I were to take fuel prices as an example, I've owned fuel efficient vehicles for years now. The increase in gasoline prices has hardly hit me at all. Okay - I spend 5 dollars a week more on gasoline.
Now I've seen some pretty impressive gasoline bills from the person in their 12 mpg big pickup ahead of me. But they had to take that into consideration when they bought the darn thing, didn't they? Probably not, since many have 10 year loans on their guzzlers.
Re: I have never understood this... (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Best start looking for a new job and beat the rush.
Re: I have never understood this... (Score:5, Insightful)
Last I looked, we were in the middle of a mass extinction wave, climate change with record storms after record storms following record heatwave after record heatwave, and a geopolitical situation that didn't need to be even half as severe as it is, if only we had kept continuing building up renewable energy sources following the hype in 2010 ff, instead of torpedo'ing it for the sake fossil-fuel profits.
I don't understand what's there not to understand. Sounds like a no-brainer to me.
living in Europe is going to get harder (Score:1)
Summary is an oversimplification (Score:5, Informative)
Simply reading about the ECT (which is linked in the article) ought to tell you that it does a lot more than protect any one industry's profits. The relevant section:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
shows that it could, for example, prevent a signing country from nationalizing their energy industry and absconding with the assets of foreign investors. Suppose some members of the EU decide to invest in more North African solar, hoping to build a inter-Mediterranean grid to stabilize their own. The existing ECT could support that. Abandoning the ECT would require the EU as a whole, or worse individual member countries, to produce ad hoc agreements with involved parties that would have no outside enforcement body.
Re: (Score:2)
That being said, it's arguable that Venezuela may have violated the ECT post-Chavez, so clearly its not without its flaws as far as enforcement is concerned.
Re: (Score:2)
That being said, it's arguable that Venezuela may have violated the ECT post-Chavez
Nope. That isn't arguable at all because Venezuela never signed the treaty.
ECT - Members [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
Venezuela is listed as a member nation, no? Or are they just an "observer"?
Re: (Score:1)
As it should be, every generation should be sovereign over their own nation and not slaves to the decision of the previous generation.
Re:Summary is an oversimplification (Score:4, Insightful)
You can be sovereign over your own nation, just don't expect anyone to invest in you if your nation doesn't look stable. That's what this fundamentally was for.
The issue is it was intended as a mechanism to reduce investment risk against state actors, not as a mechanism to prevent climate change policies from being enacted.
Re: (Score:2)
Foreign investment is not how nations grow. They grow by education and providing cheap shit and natural resources and then moving up the value chain, education can be done with minimal resources.
Foreign investment and the protection of foreign investors is a trap, its promotion is just self serving bullshit from an international elite who want to trap the world in a neofeudal structure where sovereignty is removed.
Re: (Score:3)
providing cheap shit and natural resources
You're describing foreign investment.
Re: (Score:2)
Buying goods and services is not investment.
Investment is when you buy the factory in order to skim off the profits - and in the case of foreign investment that involves shipping them out of the country.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Sounds like you're a big fan of Juche. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
Foreign investment is not how nations grow.
Yes and we should educate people with magical pixies schools which appear out of no where and cost nothing. You seem to have a problem with macro-economics. Foreign investment is directly related to economic activity in a nation. When that activity also includes the sale (and importantly taxation) of natural resources a foreign investment in that resource is absolutely "how nations grow" as it provides them the money to do the things you've listed.
The issue with many such resources is that a nation to the e
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
It sounds like you're implying that every new generation in a State should consider themselves free to abandon all obligations the State had prior to them.
If that is indeed what you're implying, then there's a reason smarter people than you handle shit like this.
Re: (Score:2)
Resource agreements don't amount to slavery unless you negotiate in bad faith.
Re: (Score:2)
There's nothing to stop the EU signing a treaty with North African solar producers that includes an external arbitration clause.
That's what they did with the UK after brexit, and they currently have legal action against the UK on pause while waiting to see if the 3rd PM this year can resolve the issues on the island of Ireland.
Re: (Score:2)
There is little to resolve. The EU and UK were never honest in their negotiations about Northern Ireland, just kicking the can down the road. There is no compromise, there is only Brexit or no Brexit ... giving EU courts jurisdiction over Northern Ireland is no Brexit.
Re:Summary is an oversimplification (Score:4, Informative)
The EU was pretty straightforward from the start about that. The UK's plan to divide them failed miserably, and against a united front there was little they could do. The EU was always two steps ahead.
The Irish border problem is unresolvable. That's not the EU's fault, the UK decided to leave after having negotiated a peace that was dependent on both countries being EU members.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah but you're chucking an existing treaty in favor of something that has to be renegotiated.
Re:Summary is an oversimplification (Score:4, Insightful)
In other words, the treaty has some good parts in addition to these parts which prevent EU countries from effectively implementing measures battling climate change. Doesn't matter. Due to the latter parts, the treaty as a whole is intolerable for most EU countries, and we're seeing the results. As for the good parts, they don't need to be scrapped. According to the article, president Macron suggests creating another treaty, which will be less broad. It can contain the parts of the current treaty that are still useful.
Re: (Score:2)
Nothing is preventing the EU from "battling climate change". Most EU countries have already set a sunset date for ICE engines (2030-2035 depending on the country). Torpedoing their own domestic market for hydrocarbon fuels is well within the scope of the ECT.
Re: Summary is an oversimplification (Score:2)
Re: Summary is an oversimplification (Score:2)
I think it will prevent several solutions to the gas crisis, such as gas drilling, building new power plants. Even wrong and solar power investments might reduce, if there is a risk that laws might forbid them later.
Re: (Score:2)
Seizing foreign owned assets always needs to be on the table for national security. The United States has sold vast swaths of our econ