A media release notes, “The proposed Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) between the European Union (EU) and Canada would grant energy companies far-reaching rights to challenge bans and regulations of environmentally damaging shale gas development (fracking), a new briefing by Corporate Europe Observatory, The Council of Canadians and the Transnational Institute shows.”
“While the majority of European countries concerned with shale gas endowments are taking positions against it, powerful oil and gas corporations are pushing back against regulation. ‘CETA will empower big oil and gas companies to challenge fracking bans and regulations through the back door…’, warns Timothé Feodoroff, from the Transnational Institute.”
“Under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) there already exists a precedent for the legal challenges to fracking bans and regulations that the new report warns could be the state of things to come in Europe and Canada. US energy firm, Lone Pine Resources Inc., is challenging a moratorium on fracking in the Canadian province of Quebec, suing the Canadian government for $250-million in compensation. ‘The Lone Pine case shows that governments are highly vulnerable to investor-state lawsuits against precautionary environmental decisions affecting controversial energy projects’, says Stuart Trew, trade campaigner with the Council of Canadians. ‘An investor-state dispute system in the proposed CETA would create needless risk to Canadian and European communities weighing the pros and cons of fracking’, adds Emma Lui, water campaigner with the Council of Canadians.”
For more, please read:
The right to say no: EU–Canada trade agreement threatens fracking bans
EU-Canada trade agreement threatens fracking bans
NEWS: Company launches $250 million NAFTA challenge against Quebec’s moratorium on fracking
UPDATE: One-third of Members of European Parliament vote against fracking
