Lynn Boylan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chairman and I apologise to our guests for arriving late. We were debating the protection of the Irish native honeybee.

I want to go back to the Energy Charter Treaty. In 2018, Commissioner Malmström announced that investor-state dispute settlement, ISDS, was over and dead. Investor-state dispute settlement is not even on the negotiation proposals under the modernisation process. It is my understanding that the EU is hoping the UN is going to deal with that. If, however, we are now in a situation where we are talking about new liquified natural gas, LNG terminals, whether they are in Ireland or in other EU member states, we are locking in those provisions under the Energy Charter Treaty for all of those new LNG terminals by not withdrawing from the Energy Charter Treaty.

The other issue is that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC, working group's sixth report clearly referred to the Energy Charter Treaty as hindering progress in climate action. It names the Energy Charter Treaty specifically as something that is preventing member states and Governments from taking climate action because we must compensate for the stranded assets of fossil fuel companies. The first point is the element of why ISDS was not part of the modernisation process. At what date is the EU going to cut its losses and say that we cannot modernise this treaty? If the EU intends to stay in and is successful at getting an EU carve-out from the ISDS provisions, how is that ethical when then say that the global south members who are joining the Energy Charter Treaty will not have same exemptions from the tribunal process? Surely it is completely unethical to say that we have two sets of rules.

The second question is on the proposal. I believe the proposal to remove the "do no significant harm" principle comes under the recovery and resilience facility legislation. We all agree that we must do what we can to end the war in Ukraine and deliver protections and results for the energy-poor across Europe, but EU funds should not harm nature, climate, or the environment. We would like to see that principle actually strengthened rather than removed. I would like to hear Commissioner Simson's comments on that please.