CETA: Greenwashing at the expense of democracy and the environment
CETA: Greenwashing at the expense of democracy and the environment
Despite the high number of social and environmental crises, the EU Commission and the Federal Government maintain a trade policy that puts trade liberalisation and investment protection above all else and essentially takes no account of sustainability. CETA is a warning example of this. This adherence to a traditional 20th century foreign trade policy has led to a strong politicisation of EU trade policy over the last decade. This is accompanied by the increasingly difficult ratification processes of EU free trade agreements such as CETA. To counter criticism and speed up ratification processes, a new strategy called "treaty-making by afterthought" has begun to be developed. The pattern: Interpretative or supplementary declarations will be drawn up, which will be annexed to the agreement even years after the actual conclusion of the negotiations, in order to appease the critics. However, these additional declarations are not a solution, as they have only interpretative value from a legal point of view and cannot really change the text of the contract. Nevertheless, this means was also used to convince the Green members of the Bundestag that corporate lawsuits against the climate are excluded in order for them to ratify CETA. An undemocratic trick that deceived the public and parliament. In this study, we at PowerShift, together with the Environmental Institute Munich e.V. Take a political and legal look at the procedure and the leaked interpretation statement.
English (US)