Brussels, 27/10/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Monday 26 October, the environmental NGOs Friends of the Earth, Sierra Club and Powershift spoke out against the weaknesses of the proposals on sustainable development tabled by the European Commission in the framework of EU/United States free-trade negotiations (TTIP) at the 11th round of expert-level talks, which were held in Miami from 19 to 23 October.
On the basis of a leaked document, these three organisations criticised the Commission for being “willing to trade away essential environmental safeguards” in the TTIP talks, to the detriment of public climate and environmental policies and in favour of major oil companies.
“The leaked document (…) is full of unbinding and unenforceable language that shows that the EU is not committed to safeguarding essential environmental policies and protections. It also fails to even mention TTIP's many threats to the environment, or propose any concrete measures to counter these threats”, state these NGOs, which come from both sides of the Atlantic.
They argue that the leaked document will not adequately defend the environmental policies which could be affected by TTIP: for instance, there is nothing in the text to prevent foreign companies from attacking environmental policies from either side of the Atlantic in private trade tribunals.
They also lament the fact that the provisions on the environment are worded ambiguously, creating loopholes which will allow governments to pursue environmentally harmful practices. These clauses contain no obligation to ratify the multilateral agreements on environmental protection and include a set of vague objectives on biological diversity, the illegal trade in wild species and chemicals, they add.
The text also includes several provisions which the Commission can claim are 'safeguards' - such as recognising the right of each party to determine its sustainable development policies and priorities, but they do not do enough to provide effective protection for the environmental policies from being called into question by the rules set in place with the TTIP, they argue.
Finally, the three environmental NGOs hit out at the absence of any application mechanism for the provisions referred to in the text. Even if such a mechanism had been laid down, it would have been weaker than the execution mechanism in place for foreign investors, either through the investor-state dispute settlement mechanism (ISDS) or the new dispute settlement system proposed by the Commission, in their opinion.
Nothing in the EU's proposals on sustainable development would prevent TTIP from allowing companies such as Shell and Chevron from attacking climate and environmental policies in private commercial courts and stimulating an expansion in the production and trade in harmful fossil fuels such as oil and gas, they conclude. (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)