France Says Corporate Sovereignty Must Come Out Of CETA, Or Be Replaced By Something Completely Different
from the that's-awkward dept
There are so many massive trade deals on the go at the moment that it is easy to lose track. In the US, TPP is at the forefront of many people’s thoughts; in Europe, it is TAFTA/TTIP. TISA is just starting to appear on the radar, while CETA, the trade agreement between the EU and Canada, is dropping off it. That’s because there is a general belief that CETA is “done” — even if the text needs “legal scrubbing”, the assumption is that no more changes can be made. Evidently, somebody forgot to tell the French government, which is calling for the corporate sovereignty chapter to be dropped according to this article in Le Devoir (original in French, found via @StuJT):
Although he is generally in favor of this agreement [CETA], the [French] Secretary of State [for External Commerce] considers that before ratifying the treaty it will be necessary either to withdraw current sections on ISDS or rewrite them entirely. Moreover, the opinion of [the French Secretary of State] Matthias Fekl represents not only the official position of France, but also a consensus shared by Germany and the European social democrats. In the daily Le Monde, he said on Wednesday that the only options remaining on the table were “the withdrawal, pure and simple, of ISDS or coming up with something new.” There is therefore no question of the Secretary of State signing the Canada-EU treaty without “inventing something new, that is no longer [investor-state] arbitration, but a new way to settle disputes, by integrating public courts in the procedure.”
That position will be a massive spoke in the wheel for the ratification of CETA, since there is no indication Canada would be willing to remove or renegotiate the corporate sovereignty provisions there. It’s also interesting that Germany is mentioned in this context: its position on ISDS has been rather inconstant — as has France’s, for that matter — and the latest news would seem to indicate that things are still up in the air for that country too.
The declaration of the French Secretary of State undermines a speech made very recently by the European Commissioner responsible for trade and TTIP, Cecila Malmström, at a meeting with the International Trade Committee of the European Parliament. Here’s the context she gave:
the vast majority of the individual responses [to the Commission’s consultation on corporate sovereignty last year] rejected either TTIP in its entirety or ISDS more specifically. But the responses from interest groups representing groups of people were more mixed.
Let me be clear on how we interpret those results. The consultation was not a referendum even if the responses showed huge scepticism and concerns about the system.
What the consultation did do is allow us to understand the main concerns about the system and give us ideas for how to address them.
In other words, we are going to ignore what 145,000 people said, and retain the anti-democratic corporate sovereignty structure intact. Malmström then goes on to give some specious reasons why ISDS must be kept in TAFTA/TTIP, albeit in a modified form — and yet strangely omits to mention a far simpler solution, which is for companies that are worried about their foreign investments to take out insurance — for example, from the World Bank’s Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency.
She then tries to suggest that CETA’s ISDS chapter can act as a template for TTIP — even though a detailed analysis from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives indicates that the new corporate sovereignty provisions it contains are still deeply flawed (pdf). But if France really does stick to its view that ISDS must be removed from CETA, or replaced by a completely different mechanism, the argument that CETA’s corporate sovereignty approach shows the way forward for including ISDS in TAFTA/TTIP collapses. Expect the European Commission to ignore this inconvenient fact, and to press on regardless.
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Filed Under: canada, ceta, corporate sovereignty, france, isds
Comments on “France Says Corporate Sovereignty Must Come Out Of CETA, Or Be Replaced By Something Completely Different”
Spoke in a wheel
Wouldn’t a massive spoke in a wheel be a good thing? Spokes are what add strength to a wheel.
Re: Spoke in a wheel
Every spoke needs to be very similar in order to maintain an equal distribution of mass, otherwise the wheel will be out of balance thus reducing your maximum speed.
France
Blindfolded and drunk, France is throwing darts all over the place for every issue. Sometimes they hit the mark, sometimes they miss horribly.
Re: France
“Blindfolded and drunk, France is throwing darts all over the place”
But at least they know how to party !
Re: France
As opposed to the shenanigans occurring in the US Congress. They randomly toss darts in whatever direction their overlords tell them to, mostly missing the point but always making themselves look stupid.
What I don't get
Q.: How big does a company have to be to become sovereign?
A.: Big enough to afford lawyers to initiate ISDS proceedings.
Q.: How big will a company be after their ISDS win.
A.: Twice as big as before their ISDS proceedings.
It is important to distinguish the actors from eachother.
This is EU in a nutshell on several issues:
The commission doesn’t care much about political opinions. They are running their own freakshow. Particularly on trade agreements they have been the lapdog of large companies and since trade agreements were never stopped before ACTA they have made up their own reality.
The parliament are somewhat sensitive to public opinions and will generally act in the loudest shouting lobbyists interest.
The national government are a different beast entirely. They act in the setting of obscure legal approval procedures and some limited public theater. There are about 6 blocks: Germany is the largest, France, Italy, UK, Eastern Europe and the common coalitions between Scandinavia, Benelux, Iberia and Greece.
It seems Germanys grand coalition and Frances socialists are concerned about their internal public opinions. When 2 of the 6 blocks agree on something, it is difficult to stop and since the national governments have to ratify the agreement, this is a pretty significant hurdle for the commission! This is even without the parliaments significant concerns about ISDS. The commissions negotiation teams are looking very detatched from reality.
good
Save us the trouble of cancelling it when we fire Harper … out of a cannon …. into the sun (cc futurama).
Re: good
let’s deport him to china instead.
Re: Re: good
…where I’m sure he will be welcomed with open arms, since he’s just as keen on surveillance and controlling information as they are.
Re: Re: Re: good
Didn’t he also try and sell China the controlling rights to Canada’s Energy resources for 38 years in that last failed treaty – the one Germany walked out of after everyone thought it was a done deal??
Methinks he would indeed be welcomed in China.
Hell, he probably already has a small castle set aside for him there – for his retirement.
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