French President Emmanuel Macron announced his country’s withdrawal from the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT), an international trade and investment agreement signed in the early 1990s to protect investment in the energy sector, on Friday 21 October at the end of a European summit in Brussels.
“We have decided to withdraw from the ECT (...) This is consistent with our positions and with the Paris Agreement”, said Mr Macron.
The French minister for the energy transition, Agnès Pannier-Runacher, added: “This treaty was no longer compatible with our climate commitments. We are taking a stand that is consistent with our climate commitments and our strategy to accelerate the energy transition”.
This echoes the widespread criticism of the agreement in principle reached between the contracting parties to the ECT on Friday 24 June to modernise it (see EUROPE 12979/10).
Withdrawal announcements multiply
France is following in the footsteps of Spain and the Netherlands, who announced their intention to leave the ECT a few days ago (see EUROPE 13046/19, 13042/11).
Poland is already further along in the process. However, the Polish Senate still has to approve the law to withdraw the country from the treaty.
At this stage, Italy remains the only EU Member State to have left the ECT, in 2016.
However, a country that has withdrawn from the ECT can still be sued due to a ‘survival clause’ that allows investors to sue a state for 20 years after it has withdrawn from the ECT for investments made before the date of exit from the treaty. (Original version in French by Damien Genicot)