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Wind turbines in the North Sea
Photo: Ingo Wagner / picture alliance / dpa
For corporations, they are a legitimate means, for critics a kind of parallel justice: before arbitration tribunals such as the World Bank's International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) in Washington, investors can sue states if they feel that their rights have been violated by political decisions. This also happens again and again in Germany – for example in the context of the energy transition.
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In 2016, for example, the Austrian construction company Strabag went to ICSID and demanded damages in connection with offshore projects in the North Sea. According to the company, an amendment to the Renewable Energy Sources Act and the Wind Energy at Sea Act (WindSeeG) significantly worsened conditions, and investments were initially reduced and then stopped altogether. Against the same background, the Irish project developer Mainstream Renewable Power sued the Federal Republic of Germany for around 330 million euros.
Both companies based their lawsuits on the so-called Energy Charter, which Germany has signed. Although Germany and the EU as a whole have now decided to withdraw from the treaty, the withdrawal period is 20 years. And so the lawsuits of the corporations are currently still causing considerable costs.
So far, the state has spent a good 12.8 million euros on the Strabag lawsuit. For appraisers alone, more than 800,000 euros were due. The much shorter procedure with mainstream has so far cost around 6.2 million euros. A total of EUR 10 million has been earmarked for these costs in the current financial year.
The figures are in a response from the Federal Ministry of Economics to the Left Party MP Pascal Meiser, which is available to SPIEGEL. Meiser sees them as proof that investment protection agreements represent "an immense waste of taxpayers' money and working time for employees in the ministries". Therefore, "the withdrawal of Germany and the European Union from the Energy Charter Treaty must finally be taken seriously".
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However, the phase-out agreed in the coalition agreement is part of a compromise: In return, the Greens agreed to the Ceta investment protection agreement with Canada. This is considered more progressive, but in principle also allows investor lawsuits. Meiser finds it "absurd" that the traffic light coalition with CETA has waved through a new investment protection agreement "despite all the promises to the contrary of the Greens" and is planning further agreements. These threatened to hang "like a sword of Damocles like a sword of Damocles" over the energy transition for many decades to come.