Billions Of Euros Research Articles

The Financial Model for Water and Sanitation Services in Portugal: Lessons from Decades of Subsidies and Questionable Public Policies

Despite the billions of euros used as subsidies over recent decades, Portugal’s water sector continues to struggle, being characterized by significant inefficiencies and differences between high- and low-performing water and sanitation services (WSSs). Current subsidy policies lack transparency and are not linked to performance results, undermining efforts to promote efficiency and sustainability in both environmental and financial dimensions. To address these issues, this article highlights relevant aspects to be taken into account in the redefinition of funding allocation in the Portuguese WSS sector. By implementing performance-based criteria for subsidy allocation and prioritization, regardless of the identity of beneficiaries or providers, we aim to instigate accountability and efficiency in this process. The analysis draws on empirical data to highlight the shortcomings of existing practices and demonstrates the potential benefits of adopting the “user-pays” principle. This principle is able to improve the definition of tariffs aiming for full cost recovery, while still providing for disadvantaged and vulnerable customers through social tariffs or assistance programs. Key findings indicate that coordinated efforts among government agencies, regulators, public and private utilities, and municipalities are essential to develop and promote effective financing strategies. This stakeholder’s cooperation is essential for managing the urban water cycle sustainably and addressing the sector’s long-term challenges. This research implies that a strategic shift in subsidy allocation is required, to develop accountability, efficiency, and equity in the WSS sector. The allocation of financial resources must be better justified to enhance overall performance in the sector.

A Multi-solution Study on GDPR AI-enabled Completeness Checking of DPAs

Specifying legal requirements for software systems to ensure their compliance with the applicable regulations is a major concern of requirements engineering. Personal data which is collected by an organization is often shared with other organizations to perform certain processing activities. In such cases, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) requires issuing a data processing agreement (DPA) which regulates the processing and further ensures that personal data remains protected. Violating GDPR can lead to huge fines reaching to billions of Euros. Software systems involving personal data processing must adhere to the legal obligations stipulated both at a general level in GDPR as well as the obligations outlined in DPAs highlighting specific business. In other words, a DPA is yet another source from which requirements engineers can elicit legal requirements. However, the DPA must be complete according to GDPR to ensure that the elicited requirements cover the complete set of obligations. Therefore, checking the completeness of DPAs is a prerequisite step towards developing a compliant system. Analyzing DPAs with respect to GDPR entirely manually is time consuming and requires adequate legal expertise. In this paper, we propose an automation strategy that addresses the completeness checking of DPAs against GDPR provisions as a text classification problem. Specifically, we pursue ten alternative solutions which are enabled by different technologies, namely traditional machine learning, deep learning, language modeling, and few-shot learning. The goal of our work is to empirically examine how these different technologies fare in the legal domain. We computed F2\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$_2$$\\end{document} score on a set of 30 real DPAs. Our evaluation shows that best-performing solutions yield F2\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$_2$$\\end{document} score of 86.7% and 89.7% are based on pre-trained BERT and RoBERTa language models. Our analysis further shows that other alternative solutions based on deep learning (e.g., BiLSTM) and few-shot learning (e.g., SetFit) can achieve comparable accuracy, yet are more efficient to develop.

Bonding properties of selected alien invasive wood species

Invasive alien plant species pose a significant challenge to European ecosystems. They displace native vegetation, damage agricultural land, and annually cost the European economy billions of euros. Many of them are removed daily and mainly burned, although some of them produce lignocellulosic material that could be used in place of native wood species. In this study, the bonding properties of selected invasive wood species in Slovenia were tested using standard methods. Wood lamellas were produced according to the SIST EN 205 standard from Ailanthus altissima, Aesculus hippocastanum, Robinia pseudoacacia, Gleditsia triacanthos and Acer negundo and glued with polyvinyl acetate (PVAc) and one-component polyurethane (PU) adhesive. The results showed that selected wood species can be bonded well with both adhesives (bond shear strengths from 7.2 to 15.1 N/mm2), although there were large variations due to the heterogeneity of the wood material. The differences in the shear strength of the bonds were mainly due to the different densities of the wood (479 to 702 kg/m3) species and the high variability in material properties (for example porosity from 0.54 to 0.68 and shear strength in tangential direction from 11.2 to 21.1 N/mm2), which are related to the anatomical characteristics of the individual wood species.

Legitimizing the interventions recommended in “European Research Area Policy Agenda 2022–2024”

Abstract The EU Directorate General for Research and Innovation’s “European Research Area Policy Agenda: Overview of Actions for the Period 2022–2024” outlines twenty actions to boost research excellence, investment and reform, coordination and support, or green and digital transformation of the academia, in an attempt to create a truly common “European knowledge market.” Filled with strategic planning jargon, the policy specifies the recommended interventions for years to come and with billions of Euros of funding to follow. Using a qualitative critical discourse approach, this study explores policy-making from a linguistic perspective to capture the characteristics of current EU R&I discourse. Language choices have a constitutive role in policy papers due to the discursive capacity for legitimization and subsequent persuasion. The analysis focuses on the persuasive presuppositions induced by certain lexico-grammatical choices, including evaluative and rhetorical devices, and shows how the ERA policy fosters acceptance of a European vision of R&I values.

Novel metabolite madeirone and neomarinone extracted from Streptomyces aculeoletus as marine antibiofilm and antifouling agents.

Introduction: Biofouling poses a significant economic threat to various marine industries, leading to financial losses that can reach billions of euros annually. This study highlights the urgent need for effective alternatives to traditional antifouling agents, particularly following the global ban on organotin compounds. Material and methods: Streptomyces aculeolatus PTM-346 was isolated from sediment samples on the shores of the Madeira Archipelago, Portugal. The crude extract was fractionated using silica flash chromatography and preparative HPLC, resulting in two isolated marinone compounds: madeirone (1), a novel marinone derivative discovered in this study, and neomarinone (2). The antifouling activities of these compounds were tested against five marine bacterial species and the larvae of the mussel Mytilus galloprovincialis. Additionally, in silico and in vivo environmental toxicity evaluations of madeirone (1) and neomarinone (2) were conducted. Results: Madeirone (1) demonstrated significant antibiofilm efficacy, inhibiting Phaeobacter inhibens by up to 66%, Marinobacter hydrocarbonoclasticus by up to 60%, and Cobetia marina by up to 40%. Neomarinone (2) also exhibited substantial antibiofilm activity, with inhibition rates of up to 41% against P. inhibens, 40% against Pseudo-oceanicola batsensis, 56% against M. hydrocarbonoclasticus, 46% against C. marina, and 40% against Micrococcus luteus. The growth inhibition activity at the same concentrations of these compounds remained below 20% for the respective bacteria, highlighting their effectiveness as potent antibiofilm agents without significantly affecting bacterial viability. Additionally, both compounds showed potent effects against the settlement of Mytilus galloprovincialis larvae, with EC50 values of 1.76µg/mL and 0.12µg/mL for compounds (1) and (2), respectively, without impairing the viability of the targeted macrofouling species. In silico toxicity predictions and in vivo toxicity assays both support their potential for further development as antifouling agents. Conclusion: The newly discovered metabolite madeirone (1) and neomarinone (2) effectively inhibit both micro- and macrofouling. This distinct capability sets them apart from existing commercial antifouling agents and positions them as promising candidates for biofouling prevention. Consequently, these compounds represent a viable and environmentally friendly alternative for incorporation into paints, primers, varnishes, and sealants, offering significant advantages over traditional copper-based compounds.

Shining a light on tax evasion and avoidance

Tax evasion costs European countries billions of Euros a year, which has a detrimental impact on wider society and undermines public faith in the tax system as a whole. We spoke to Annette Alstadsæter, Ronald Davies, and Hector Ulloa about the work “Skatteforsk – Centre for Tax Research” is doing uncovering the facts around tax evasion, to then inform policy design.

On the Origin of Cultivated Roses: DNA Authentication of the Bourbon Rose Founding Pedigree

Rose flowers have been cultivated for their fragrance and their garden value since ancient times. Very ancient cultivars became famous locally for their specific use, and competitive horticultural activities progressively established, leading, with time, to landraces with limited polymorphism. The most famous examples are the oil-bearing Damask roses from Iran and the Yueyue Fen garden strain from China. In 1817, a new rose, allegedly a hybrid from the two previous lineages, was discovered at Reunion. From this plant, as early as the 1820s, a new founder group, the Bourbon roses, was developed in France, which immediately stirred up deep passions among botanists and skilled enthusiasts. Today, more than 30,000 named cultivars have been raised either as garden and landscape plants for the cut rose market or as indoor pot plants. The market handles billions of euros a year, making the rose the most economically important crop worldwide. Following the inheritance of SSR DNA markers, we here propose a reconstitution of the very early lineage of Bourbon roses, clarifying one of the major steps, if not the major one, that links these very ancient heritage roses to modern roses.

Electoral effects of investment subsidies in national and European elections

ABSTRACT Extensive research has focused on political movements against regional integration and globalisation to understand the causes and consequences of their political success in developed democracies. However, studies on the effectiveness of large-scale institutional efforts to hinder this political development have been limited. My paper investigates the electoral effects of one of the largest investment subsidy programs in the world, the European regional investment policy. Even though it distributes billions of Euros each year to foster economic and social cohesion, it is unclear whether these fiscal transfers produce any tangible electoral effects. I argue that, in this case, supranational institutions have been successful in taking credit, making heavily targeted regions infertile grounds for the electoral success of eurosceptic parties. Leveraging the NUTS-level election dataset (EU-NED) and regression discontinuity models, this paper is the first to investigate the causal link between investment subsidies for less developed regions and electoral support for eurosceptic parties in national and European elections. The analysis shows that high fiscal transfers to less developed regions cause lower levels of Eurosceptic voting.

A large-scale prioritisation to strengthen the resilience of communities in Italian territorial contexts

In the aftermath of the 2009 L'Aquila earthquake, the Italian government issued significant measures to stimulate seismic prevention in its territories. To this end, billions of euros were distributed to the twenty Italian Regions in proportion to their seismic risk and according to the requests of public administrators and private taxpayers. However, the distribution of resources among the Regions took place without considering important aspects of resilience such as the emergency management and recovery, as well as the integration and social cohesion of populations. This article proposes a framework to identify a large-scale prioritisation of the Italian Territorial Contexts (TCs) recently defined for civil protection purposes in order to allocate economic resources among Regions in accordance with the resilience deficiencies of their communities. The proposal is based on known methods of multi-criteria analysis that are commonly used in the engineering field, and as a first application, it has been applied to all TCs of five Regions of southern Italy. The results of this study may be useful for policy makers to develop a national resilience policy.

Assessment of climate impact on grape productivity: A new application for bioclimatic indices in Italy

Italy is a world leader for viticulture and wine business with an export valued 7 billion of euros in 2021, and wine being the second most exported product within the national agri-food sector. However, these figures might be threatened by climate change and winegrowers call for more reliable local information on future impacts of climate change on viticulture.The study aims to understand the impact of climate on wine production in Italy using grape productivity data and bioclimatic indices. Using temperature and precipitation observations from the E-OBS gridded dataset, a set of bioclimatic indices recommended by the International Organisation of Vine and Wine guidelines is calculated and correlated with grape productivity data at the regional scale (Nomenclature of territorial units for statistics, NUTS, level 2) over the last 39 years (1980-2019). The study investigates how both long-term change and natural variability of the bioclimatic indices impacted on grape productivity. Both single and multi-regression approaches are applied to assess the portion of grape productivity variability explained by the selected indices.When the single-regression approach is applied, the correlations between bioclimatic indices and grape productivity explain up to the 45 % of total production variability, however they are statistically significant only in few regions. Conversely, the multi-regression approach improves the proportion of variance explained and gives statistically significative results in region where the single regression is not statically significant.The multi-regressive approach shows the added value of considering the interplay of different bioclimatic indices in explaining the overall variability of productivity. The possibility of using bioclimatic indicators as a proxy for grape productivity provides a simple tool that grape growers, wine consortia and policy makers can use to adapt to future climate.

NFDI4Microbiota – national research data infrastructure for microbiota research

Microbes – bacteria, archaea, unicellular eukaryotes, and viruses – play an important role in human and environmental health. Growing awareness of this fact has led to a huge increase in microbiological research and applications in a variety of fields. Driven by technological advances that allow high-throughput molecular characterization of microbial species and communities, microbiological research now offers unparalleled opportunities to address current and emerging needs. As well as helping to address global health threats such as antimicrobial resistance and viral pandemics, it also has a key role to play in areas such as agriculture, waste management, water treatment, ecosystems remediation, and the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of various diseases. Reflecting this broad potential, billions of euros have been invested in microbiota research programs worldwide. Though run independently, many of these projects are closely related. However, Germany currently has no infrastructure to connect such projects or even compare their results. Thus, the potential synergy of data and expertise is being squandered. The goal of the NFDI4Microbiota consortium is to serve and connect this broad and heterogeneous research community by elevating the availability and quality of research results through dedicated training, and by facilitating the generation, management, interpretation, sharing, and reuse of microbial data. In doing so, we will also foster interdisciplinary interactions between researchers. NFDI4Microbiota will achieve this by creating a German microbial research network through training and community-building activities, and by creating a cloud-based system that will make the storage, integration and analysis of microbial data, especially omics data, consistent, reproducible, and accessible across all areas of life sciences. In addition to increasing the quality of microbial research in Germany, our training program will support widespread and proper usage of these services. Through this dual emphasis on education and services, NFDI4Microbiota will ensure that microbial research in Germany is synergistic and efficient, and thus excellent. By creating a central resource for German microbial research, NDFDI4Microbiota will establish a connecting hub for all NFDI consortia that work with microbiological data, including GHGA, NFDI4Biodiversity, NFDI4Agri and several others. NFDI4Microbiota will provide non-microbial specialists from these consortia with direct and easy access to the necessary expertise and infrastructure in microbial research in order to facilitate their daily work and enhance their research. The links forged through NFDI4Microbiota will not only increase the synergy between NFDI consortia, but also elevate the overall quality and relevance of microbial research in Germany.

Territorial revisions to increase cohesion policy funding from the EU: the case of the new member states

ABSTRACT This paper argues that some EU member states have been smart, or even dishonest. Splitting off capital cities from existing NUTS2 regions has given them an advantage in the Cohesion Policy funds allocation scheme but worsened the position of others. To explain the reasons and implications, we review the issue of delimiting the NUTS2 regions and the related allocation of financial resources. We evaluate how modifications of NUTS2 regions, carried out by Hungary, Poland, and Lithuania, impacted the allocation of financial resources for the 2021–2027 programming period. The analysis shows the shift of billions of euros towards these countries. We also argue that this experience is and could also be an inspiration for other countries.

Die Aktienrente der Bundesregierung: Zielsetzung, Konzept, Gestaltungsfragen und Würdigungen

Abstract The statutory pension insurance in Germany is facing a massive financing problem. The background are demographic developments with a clearly aging population and the concept of „current income financing” – meaning that a decreasing number of people of working age have to pay the pension for an increasing number of people of retirement age with their social security premiums. Likewise the federal government set “stop bars” as political objectives, according to which premiums shall not rise above a certain level, pensions not fall below a certain level and the retirement age not be increased. With this in mind, in order to stabilize the statutory pension insurance, the government is planning to introduce partial capital cover. Hence, the federal government is to provide credit-financed “generational capital” of initially EUR 10 billion, which is to be gradually increased in the following years in order to invest it in the global stock market. The revenues and surplusses are intended to dampen future increases in premiums or to reduce the annual federal grants – currently in triple digit billions of Euros – to the statutory pension insurance. The article briefly presents the background to the pension problem in Germany and the basic points of the new concept of “stock pension”. Subsequently, open design issues are addressed, and ultimately a critical appraisal of the government’s concept of pension support, based on so-called “generational capital”, is made.

NFA: A neural factorization autoencoder based online telephony fraud detection

The proliferation of internet communication channels has increased telecom fraud, causing billions of euros in losses for customers and the industry each year. Fraudsters constantly find new ways to engage in illegal activity on the network. To reduce these losses, a new fraud detection approach is required. Telecom fraud detection involves identifying a small number of fraudulent calls from a vast amount of call traffic. Developing an effective strategy to combat fraud has become challenging. Although much effort has been made to detect fraud, most existing methods are designed for batch processing, not real-time detection. To solve this problem, we propose an online fraud detection model using a Neural Factorization Autoencoder (NFA), which analyzes customer calling patterns to detect fraudulent calls. The model employs Neural Factorization Machines (NFM) and an Autoencoder (AE) to model calling patterns and a memory module to adapt to changing customer behaviour. We evaluate our approach on a large dataset of real-world call detail records and compare it with several state-of-the-art methods. Our results show that our approach outperforms the baselines, with an AUC of 91.06%, a TPR of 91.89%, an FPR of 14.76%, and an F1-score of 95.45%. These results demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach in detecting fraud in real-time and suggest that it can be a valuable tool for preventing fraud in telecommunications networks.

Regenerating the State: The Key to Ireland’s Response to Climate Change

Regenerating the State: The Key to Ireland’s Response to Climate Change Johnny Gogan (bio) The purpose of this paper is to discuss how the response to the prospect of fracking in the border counties of Leitrim and Fermanagh could inform the wider imperative to decarbonize at a national level in the face of potentially irreversible climate change. I was invited by the Royal Irish Academy to speak on this issue, and the issue of sustainability, based on my long-term participation in the group Love Leitrim, one of a number of groups formed in 2011 to address the potential introduction of fracking into Ireland. This community response resulted, six years later, in the passing into law of one of the most progressive pieces of fossil fuel legislation heretofore, at the heart of which was a ban on fracking in Ireland. Recognised as an achievement of sustained community action in the potentially affected border region, the measure secured all-party agreement in its various Oireachtas legislative phases. I. Background Hydraulic fracturing (‘fracking’) is an oil and gas extraction process that employs large amounts of water mixed with chemicals and sand. This mixture is pumped at pressure into hydrocarbon-bearing rock formations with the purpose of releasing gas or oil not attainable in commercial amounts through conventional pumping methods. The first decade of the millennium saw key developments in this process – including multi-stage horizontal drilling and the introduction of new chemical compounds – that made previously unviable ‘plays’ viable. This resulted in what became known in the United States, where the practice was ubiquitous by 2011, as the ‘shale revolution’. By the second decade of the millennium the North American proprietors of this technology were actively seeking to export it to Europe. Fracking is associated with severe risk to drinking water, light and air pollution, the climate-changing effects of fossil fuels (including effects from fugitive methane), earthquakes, a range of cancers (given the proximity of [End Page 86] shale to uranium deposits), and finally the damage to community which is created by sudden industrialization of rural areas (involving, for example, flows of heavy machinery). North Leitrim and southwest Fermanagh, the two key areas that were licensed for exploration, remain among the least densely populated parts not just of Ireland but of western Europe. Fermanagh suffered high levels of communal violence during the 1969–1994 conflict, and as a consequence retains a legacy of community fragmentation. Leitrim for its part has been blighted by depopulation. After some years of regeneration, emigration recommenced when, in November 2010, Ireland entered a financial bailout arranged by the International Monetary Fund, the European Union, and the European Central Bank, which further intensified the post-2008 climate of austerity and the stresses on local communities, including those in Leitrim. As part of this bailout, state utilities were sold to the private sector, so that Ireland lost more of its economic independence. All this caused a widespread sense of vulnerability to external economic forces and interests. In February 2011 it was announced that licence options had been awarded to three companies to explore counties Clare, Cavan, Roscommon, Leitrim, Sligo, and (south) Donegal for shale gas. In those counties the announcement was met by a combination of dismay and panic. There already existed an awareness of an ongoing bitter conflict in northwest Mayo, where community interests were at loggerheads with the Shell Oil company – and with government as well – over the routing of a gas pipeline and positioning of a gas refinery. The licence options granted south of the border coincided with the Northern Ireland Executive’s awarding of a more advanced exploration licence to explore in Fermanagh. Chief among the exploration companies, holding licences both north and south of the border, was the Australian company Tamboran Resources. Within months, Tamboran identified an area of 100 square miles in north Leitrim/west Cavan and southwest Fermanagh as their target area, articulating a plan for three thousand wells to be drilled in a first extraction phase, should they progress through the phases of exploration licencing. Tamboran estimated the value of this gas field in billions of Euro and the potential for employment in thousands of potential jobs. II. Community...

Microsatellites and mitochondrial evidence of multiple introductions of the invasive raccoon Procyon lotor in France

Raccoons (Procyon lotor) are worldwide invaders, due to deliberate or accidental releases, and their impacts exceed hundred of billions of Euros in Europe only. In France, raccoons have currently established three separate, expanding populations. Identifying the current spatial genetic structure, dispersal events and phylogeography of these populations is needed to infer the invasion history and identify management units. We used wild and captive individuals sampled in France and Belgium to characterize the genetic diversity and current population genetic structure of French raccoon populations and identify potential genetic connectivity with the Belgium population using both mitochondrial DNA and microsatellite loci. Results confirm that French populations are the result of at least three independent introductions. While the three populations display low genetic diversity and sign of recent bottleneck, they are still expanding, suggesting that in addition to their ecological plasticity, the remaining genetic diversity is sufficient to successfully adapt to their new environment and allow a quick colonization. Particular attention must be given to the North-Eastern population, which shows genetic admixture with the Belgium population, as admixed individuals may exhibit hybrid vigor facilitating their expansion. The comparison of captive and wild individuals did not allow to identify a potential captive origin of the wild populations. The current regulation in France allowing captivity in zoos without enforcement to tighten the biosecurity of detention facilities might dampen any management measure as few introduced founders might be enough to create new populations.

THE LATEST DOCUMENT PERSONALIZATION TECHNOLOGIES AND THEIR DETECTION METHODS

The protection of secure documents has been given great importance at all times. It doesn't even matter if it's a passport, a driver's license or an educational document, any secure document must be protected and made by a public authority. The use of forged documents costs the world billions of euros, as they can be used both to disguise one's true identity and to commit crimes. For the purpose of document protection, the modification of documents is constantly carried out, with the aim - to protect the documents of one's country as best as possible by using more innovative and high-quality methods of both production and personalization. The research will research and summarize the most innovative technologies used in the personalization process, as well as analyze the methods of technology identification.

The Subject of the Underground

Romania’s 2007 accession into the European Union initiated a surge in foreign direct investment into its capital, Bucharest. New middle classes quickly took shape that pressed against the limits of the city’s socialist-era infrastructure. To accommodate the new middle classes, city planners and private developers have invested billions of euros to redesign and expand subterranean transportation, commercial, and residential spaces. This essay takes these subterranean developments as an opportunity to consider what I call the “subject of the underground.” This is the person imagined and acted on by the call to move underground. While the subject pressed underground has long been characterized by extreme marginalization, the ethnographic argument here is that projects of middle-class formation drive the assembling of underground urbanism in Bucharest. The imperative for rethinking the subject of the underground is to bring analytical attention to the sagging “place” of the new middle classes, where “place” refers both to a location in space and to a rank in a social order.

Modelling the air quality benefits of EU climate mitigation policies using two different PM2.5-related health impact methodologies

The EU, seeking to be a global leader in the fight against climate change, is moving ahead with ambitious policies to mitigate greenhouse gases emissions. In this context, the Fit for 55 package (FF55) is a set of proposals to revise and update EU legislation, to ensure that policies are in line with the climate goals of cutting emissions by at least 55% by 2030. Whilst these policies are designed for climate purposes, they will have positive side-effects (co-benefits) on air quality. Separately, additional policies are also in place to reduce emissions of related air pollutants and to improve air quality concentrations on EU territory. In this work, through a modelling study, we analyse the benefits of these policies via the health benefits arising from the resulting reductions in yearly average PM2.5 concentrations. Results are analysed by assessing and comparing morbidity and mortality impacts as computed using both the HRAPIE (Health risks of air pollution in Europe, WHO, as implemented in the CaRBonH model) and the GBD (Global Burden of Disease, as implemented in FASST-GBD model) approaches. Even when considering the uncertainty and variability in the results obtained using the two approaches, it is clear that EU policies can bring health and economic benefit in EU, with several Billions of Euro of benefits both in terms of morbidity and mortality indicators.

The Modernization of the Energy Charter Treaty: Fulfilled or Broken Promises?

On 24 June 2022, the Contracting Parties of the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) finalized discussions on the modernization of the treaty. After fifteen rounds of negotiations, an agreement in principle was reached to be adopted by the Energy Charter Conference on 22 November 2022 in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.1 The ECT, adopted in 1994, establishes a legal framework that aims to promote international cooperation in the energy sector.2 It has a membership of 53 countries primarily from Europe and Central Asia, as well as the European Union (EU) and the European Atomic Energy Community. In recent years, the ECT attracted widespread public attention due to its impact on states’ environmental and climate policies. Particularly, the treaty’s provisions on investment protection, with investor-to-state dispute settlement (ISDS) at the centre, allow foreign investors in the energy sector to challenge adverse state action before international arbitration and claim compensation for measures affecting their business activities. Fossil fuel investors have increasingly used the ECT to challenge environmental and climate measures, such as phasing out coal-fired power generation, banning offshore oil drilling in coastal areas, and prohibiting gas fracking projects. Such cases have fuelled concerns regarding the abilities of governments to roll-out large-scale climate action. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has warned that international investment agreements (IIAs) like the ECT could ‘be used by fossil-fuel companies to block national legislation aimed at phasing out the use of their assets’.3 With some of these damage claims running into billions of euros, the ECT enables fossil fuel investors to offload the costs and risks associated with their affected assets onto society at large in the face of necessary climate action. This would go, in the words of the editorial board of the Financial Times, against the ‘heart of the capitalist social contract’ and the ‘ability of markets to deal adequately with the challenge of climate change’.4