Press reaction to the termination of 277 intra-EU investment treaties

On 5 May 2020, 23 Member States signed a long awaited agreement for the termination of intra-EU bilateral investment treaties.

The treaty terminates 277 intra-EU investment treaties.

MEP Anna Cavazzini, chair of the European Parliament monitoring group on investment policy comments:

„The signing is very welcome. I now urge all Member States to ratify the treaty as soon as possible. The bilateral investment agreements it terminates are outdated and dangerous, on top of being incompatible with EU law. They can lead to decades of litigation against states, and uncapped damages having to be paid from already strained public budgets.“

„The next step is for EU Member States to follow up on their own conclusions and terminate the intra-EU application of the Energy Charter Treaty.“

Context:

The termination agreement implements the March 2018 European Court of Justice judgment (Achmea case), where the Court found that investor-State arbitration clauses in intra-EU bilateral investment treaties (“intra-EU BITs”) are incompatible with the EU Treaties. The termination treaty will have to be ratified in all signatory Member States.

The termination agreement mentions that „The European Union and its Member States will deal [..] at a later stage“ with the intra-EU application of the Energy Charter Treaty.