The European Commission published on Thursday 13 June the list of bilateral investment treaties still in force between Member States and non-Member States.
Since the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty, these bilateral investment treaties (BITs), which deal with investment protection, fall within the scope of the European common commercial policy and have therefore become an exclusively European competence.
The existing BITs remained binding, but were intended to be gradually replaced by agreements concluded by the Union. Member States could be authorised by the Commission to amend them or to conclude new ones while remedying any incompatibilities with Union law.
However, during the negotiation of new agreements of this kind, the Commission's negotiators have been subject to sometimes harsh criticism from civil society, culminating in the signing of the CETA agreement with Canada, which proposed the new investment court system (‘ICS’) to arbitrate disputes between investors and States. No agreements containing an ICS have yet been ratified by the Member States.
In the meantime, more than 1,500 of these agreements are still in force, some of them dating back to the 19th century - only 17 agreements date from after 2013. Thus, their provisions are, in fact, generally much less balanced than those of the new ‘ICS’.
Under the terms of the 2012 Regulation, the Commission will present a report on the application of this Regulation by 10 January 2020 at the latest.
To see the list of BITs : https://bit.ly/2wRluWF (Original version in French by Hermine Donceel)