Vote on the EU-Chile trade agreement in the EU Parliament - over 500 non-governmental organisations are calling for NO to the agreement!
Berlin, 27 February 2024: On Thursday 29 February, the European Parliament will vote on the trade and investment agreement with Chile. More than 500 civil society organisations and personalities from the EU and Latin America have already met in advance with a explanation and sent an open letter to MEPs to ask them to vote against the agreement.
In doing so, they highlight the increasing mining of raw materials such as lithium and copper without sufficient safeguards and compliance with standards, and criticize the newly introduced group lawsuits as well as the further mining of tariffs for agricultural products. It is not for nothing that many of the current protests in front of smallholder farmers are explicitly directed against the signing of further free trade agreements.
“The extended framework agreement between the EU and Chile is full of double standards. Environmental and climate protection as well as human rights are behind the interests of European industry in Chilean raw materials", says Bettina Müller from PowerShift e.V.
This is also shown by an information booklet recently published by PowerShift, Anders Handel, Attac Germany and Austria as well as the Forum Environment and Development. “Partnership on an equal footing? The EU-Chile Trade and Investment Agreement”.
"Investment protection in the EU-Chile Agreement poses a real threat to sustainable development. In the case of contracts between EU states, special rights for corporations are no longer legally compliant. It is therefore completely incomprehensible why the EU relies on this outdated and dangerous concept of arbitral tribunals in agreements with third countries", says Ludwig Essig, Coordinator of the Network of Fair World Trade and Trade Policy Officer at the Munich Institute for the Environment.
This is also the conclusion reached by the study published by the Munich Environmental Institute and the Hans Böckler Foundation. Investment protection in EU trade agreements with Mexico and Chile: Impact on sustainability and energy transition
“The EU identifies lithium as a strategic and critical raw material that plays an essential role in its energy transition strategy. The agreement would provide the EU, as a privileged partner, with enhanced opportunities to exploit the raw materials of the Atacama salaries. Lithium must then not be sold to domestic or foreign customers at a lower price than to the EU", says Hanni Gramann of the Attac campaign group Lithium-Raub. “Increased lithium extraction in the Atacama Desert would have significant negative consequences for the ecology and living conditions of indigenous communities, including the EU study on sustainability impact assessment Emphasizes. For example, water-intensive lithium mining could further reduce groundwater levels in the extremely low-rain region.”
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact:
- Bettina Müller, Trade and Investment Policy Officer, PowerShift e.V., 0174 4537604, bettina.mueller@power-shift.de
- Ludwig Essig, Coordinator of the Fair World Trade Network, Trade Policy Officer at the Environmental Institute, 0176 546 752 53, essig@forumue.de
- Hanni Gramann, Attac campaign group Lithium Robbery, 176 3060 8762, hanni.gramann@attac.de
