CETA: Greenwashing at the expense of democracy and the environment
Despite the high number of social and environmental crises, the EU Commission and the German government are sticking to a trade policy that puts trade liberalisation and investment protection above all else and essentially does not take sustainability into account. CETA is a warning example of this. This adherence to an outdated foreign economic policy of the 20th century has led to a strong politicisation of EU trade policy over the past decade. This is accompanied by the increasingly difficult ratification processes of EU free trade agreements such as CETA. In order to counter criticism and speed up ratification processes, a new strategy called “treaty-making by afterthought” has started to be developed. The model: Interpretations or additional declarations will be prepared, which will be annexed to the agreement 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 an 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, so that they ratify CETA. An undemocratic trick that deceived the public and parliament. In this investigation, we at PowerShift, together with the Environmental Institute Munich e.V. examine the process and the leaked explanation of interpretation politically and legally.
