The European Union announced on Friday that it has taken the final step to withdraw from the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT), a multilateral trade and investment agreement applicable to the energy sector, which it says is not compatible with its climate and energy objectives under the European Green Deal and the Paris Agreement.
Two written notifications were sent by the Council, which represents the 27 Member States, and the European Executive to the Government of Portugal, official depositary of the treaty, notifying respectively the withdrawal from the European Union and Euratom (European Energy Community atomic). The withdrawals will take effect in one year.
These notifications follow the agreement reached last month between EU energy ministers on the Commission’s proposals to pursue the withdrawal and modernisation of the treaties in parallel.
This week, the Union and its Member States also reached a formal agreement to end the continuation of intra-EU arbitration procedures under the ECT which are contrary to Union law.
The Energy Charter Treaty was signed in 1994 and entered into force in 1998. The European Union is a contracting party to the Treaty, together with Euratom, 22 EU Member States, as well as Japan, Switzerland, Turkey and most of the Western Balkan countries and the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, with the exception of Russia and Belarus. As for the EU Member States, Italy unilaterally withdrew in 2015. France, Germany, Poland and Luxembourg have already left the ECT. Slovenia, Portugal and Spain have also initiated withdrawal procedures.
The Commission negotiated a modernisation of the ECT on behalf of the EU to bring it into line with the Union’s climate and energy objectives and its investment protection framework. However, due to a lack of majority support from Member States, the EU has not yet voted in favour of modernising the ECT. The Commission subsequently proposed to the EU, Euratom and Member States to withdraw from the unmodernised treaty, mainly due to “concerns” over the protection of investments in fossil fuels.
With MAP
