'Energy Charter Treaty: time is up!', 1 June 2021

"After four unsuccessful negotiation rounds, and with a fifth round starting this week that does not bring any silver linings in terms of outcome, the time has come for the EU and its member states to leave the Energy Charter Treaty, argue a group of MEPs.

The following op-ed is signed by a group of 71 MEPs, mostly from The Left, the Greens and the Socialists & Democrats (S&D) political groups in the European Parliament. The full list of signatories is at the bottom of this article.

From 2-5 March 2021, the fourth negotiation round on the modernisation of the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) was held. This meeting was supposed to be a breakthrough, after a year of negotiations that have been unsuccessful so far in proposing concrete steps to bring the ECT in line with the Paris Agreement and the European Green Deal.

The urgency of this is becoming clearer every day. Earlier this year, we saw energy companies RWE and Uniper using the ability to call on private court to sue countries under the ECT (ISDS system) against the Dutch government for its decision to phase out coal fired power plants by 2030..."