Austria wants new group parallel justice in the EU | attac Austria

The EU Commission wants to present a proposal for more protection for cross-border investments in the EU internal market in autumn 2021, which could contain elements of a new group-wide parallel justice system between EU states. In 2018, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) declared the old system of internal EU group special lawsuits to be incompatible with EU law. (1)

According to information from the EU Commission available to Attac, the Austrian government is campaigning for the most far-reaching group special rights and its own exclusive court for groups. The Magazine profile also currently reports that Economics Minister Schramböck is hoping for "rapid progress" and an "ambitious proposal".

According to Attac, Austria has only terminated one of twelve of the old EU-illegal agreements - apparently because Austrian banks have current lawsuits going. (3) By contrast, 23 EU countries already had all the relevant investment agreements among themselves in May 2020 terminated.

"The government is delaying the end of the EU-internal parallel justice until it has implemented a replacement that serves the interests of the corporations in the best possible way," criticized Iris Frey from Attac Austria. “But special rights of action for corporations threaten a policy in the interest of the common good and are incompatible with democracy. Attac therefore calls on the government to work for the end of any special corporate rights - both within the EU and worldwide.

New study: Corporations want their own court with their own law

An new study the Brussels-based NGO Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) unveils a two-year lobbying campaign by banks, corporations and law firms to enforce new substantive rights for investors and an exclusive jurisdiction in the EU. “If the corporations have their way, a new, exclusive EU court could force the EU governments to compensate corporations with enormous sums of money for new laws to protect workers, consumers and the environment. The financial risk could ultimately prevent governments from regulating in the public interest, ”criticizes study author Pia Eberhardt from CEO.

And actually includes one Commission discussion paper of September 2020 worrying options. These include extensive material investor rights as well as the creation of a special investment court for corporations at EU level. The commission is also considering creating new corporate privileges with which they can intervene in the preparation of political decisions even earlier.

Big banks and big industry particularly active / Erste Group and the Austrian Chamber of Commerce are also pushing for special rights

According to the CEO study, there were at least a dozen meetings of corporate lobbyists with the EU Commission in 2019 and 2020, in which they demanded a new exclusive court for corporate groups. The Erste Group and the Austrian Chamber of Commerce (4) also pushed him Consultation process on special rights. Large German banks, the European Bankers Association, the German shareholder lobby and corporate lobby groups such as BusinessEurope and the French AFEP were particularly active in lobbying. Their message: Without special rights of action in the EU, investors would not have “adequate legal protection” and could therefore invest more outside the EU.

No evidence of any disadvantage for investors in the EU

For Pia Eberhardt, this blackmail tactic completely contradicts reality: “There are no indications of any systematic discrimination against foreign investors in the EU member states that would justify their own parallel justice system. In the EU single market, investors can count on a long list of rights and safeguards, including the right to property, non-discrimination, to be heard before a public authority, and to an effective remedy and a fair trial. "

Any deficits in the rule of law in a country should fundamentally be improved for everyone, instead of creating new legal privileges for a small number of already very powerful and already protected corporations that limit the democratic freedom of action, demands Attac.

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(1) In the Achmea ruling on March 6, 2018, the ECJ ruled that arbitration clauses in investment agreements within the EU are not compatible with EU law. Intra-EU investment agreements (BITs) were originally mostly concluded between Western and Eastern European EU states after the collapse of the Soviet Union and were not terminated when these states joined the EU. Before the judgment of the ECJ, the EU Commission had already taken the legal view that the corresponding bilateral investment agreements violated EU law and initiated infringement proceedings against Austria as early as 2015.

(2) It is noteworthy that the Bierlein government approved the corresponding termination agreements of several EU states on December 18, 2019 and initiated the necessary steps for their signing.

(3) Four ISDS lawsuits by Austrian banks against Croatia are currently pending before arbitration tribunals. Raiffeisenbank, Erste Bank, Addiko Bank and Bank Austria rely on special rights of action to assert their interests. They are based on the Austrian investment agreement with Croatia. If Austria had signed the multilateral termination agreement on May 5, 2020, Austria and Croatia would be obliged to notify the arbitral tribunals in a joint declaration that the arbitration clause agreed in the investment agreement is not applicable.

A total of 11 of the 25 known ISDS lawsuits from Austrian corporations are based on EU-internal investment agreements. For example, EVN AG sued Bulgaria in 2013 because it felt that it was financially disadvantaged by the Bulgarian state when it came to setting prices for electricity and paying for renewable energy.

(4) The Chamber of Commerce on this: “Only“ educational ”measures against member states have no value for investors. Investors must have a right to material compensation. "

Investors' lawsuits against states have increased rapidly around the world in recent years. In December 2020, more than 1100 cases were known. Around 20 percent of these were submitted on the basis of intra-EU investment agreements.