European Parliament
Kriton Arsenis  (S&D ).
– Mr President, I heard and I share the concerns of colleagues on the visa issue, and I would also like to draw attention to another possible problem regarding this agreement.
For the first time since the Lisbon Treaty allowed us to do so, we have concluded EU agreements on investment issues. It seems that the proposal will include provision for investor-State dispute settlement. This will mean that not only States but also individual investors can sue EU States over what they regard as obstacles to their investments. This might seriously reduce our powers here in this House, and also in the national parliaments, to regulate on environment-related, social and labour issues.
It is proposed to maximise economic profit and benefits, but our own EU assessment – the economic, social and environmental assessment – says there is no solid evidence to suggest that investor-State dispute settlement will maximise economic benefit in CETA beyond simply serving as one form of enforcement mechanism, just as State-State settlement is also an enforcement mechanism. It goes on to say that a well-crafted State-State dispute settlement mechanism might be a more appropriate enforcement mechanism in CETA. So our own assessment says we should move in another direction.
The idea of an investor-State settlement mechanism was introduced in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) because Mexico’s courts were considered to be corrupt, but in the end the mechanism was used mainly against Canada. Twenty-eight cases have been taken against Canada under NAFTA, and out of them eight have been concluded officially. Four have been lost – 50% have been lost.
I would like to mention very briefly the case of Ethyl Corp versus Canada. Canada decided to ban, for health reasons, a gasoline additive, and the Ethyl company took Canada to the NAFTA tribunal. It made Canada pay CAD 16 million in compensation, apologise and withdraw the ban. I believe that this is not the kind of regulation we can accept in this agreement.

