In a statement issued on Thursday 10 November, the Slovenian government announced the adoption of an initiative to withdraw Slovenia from the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT), an international trade and investment agreement concluded in the early 1990s to protect investments in the energy sector.
Slovenia thus becomes the fifth Member State to make such an announcement in recent weeks, after Poland, Spain, the Netherlands and France (see EUROPE 13048/5).
Justifying its decision, the Slovenian government said that the treaty “is one of the key obstacles of an effective environmental-climate and responsible energy policy”.
In particular, Ljubljana criticises the provisions of the ECT that allow an investor to sue a state party to the treaty before private arbitration tribunals, thus echoing the numerous criticisms of the ECT in recent years (see EUROPE 12918/12).
While an agreement in principle was reached between the contracting parties of the ECT on Friday 24 June to modernise it (see EUROPE 12979/10), the Slovenian government believes that the adjustments made “are not sufficient”.
Italy currently remains the only EU country to have formally exited the treaty, in 2016. (Original version in French by Damien Genicot)