On Thursday 21 October, lawyers for the NGO ClientEarth expressed their frustration that the EU has again avoided being held to account on 20 October in Geneva (MOP7) for not complying with the international Aarhus Convention.
The EU obtained a postponement of the Aarhus Convention Compliance Committee (ACCC)’s decision to condemn it for its persistent refusal to submit State aid decisions to public and NGO scrutiny (see EUROPE 12809/9).
In practice, this means that decisions channelling considerable sums of money from the public purse directly to industry remain untouchable by civil society, the NGO said in a statement.
“The EU is playing a dangerous game here (...) Its insistence on exceptional treatment is undermining basic values that the success of this agreement depends on. This is not what international leadership on the Rule of law and environmental accountability looks like”, commented ClientEarth lawyer Sebastian Bechtel.
The EU has committed to carrying out a study on how to implement the ACCC findings by the end of 2022 and to proposing new measures to address the issue, ‘where appropriate’, by the end of 2023.
In the EU Council, Austria and Luxembourg had abstained when the EU decision to do everything possible to obtain this postponement was taken. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)