Institut Veblen / Veblen Institute

Six EU Member States now face infringement complaints over their investment treaties

Mathilde Dupré — 2026-10-15T10:22:00Z

Two more EU Member States, Portugal and the Netherlands, are now targeted by infringement complaints concerning their networks of bilateral investment treaties. The complaints are being filed today with the European Commission by two national platforms of civil society organisations: TROCA in Portugal and Handel Anders in the Netherlands. They argue that these treaties are incompatible with European Union law. Together with the complaints filed in mid-December by six organisations, including the Veblen Institute (1), against France, Germany, Sweden and Austria, six Member States are now targeted.

Why these complaints?
These bilateral investment treaties allow foreign investors to claim compensation before private arbitration tribunals, outside national and European courts, when States adopt measures that affect their profits, such as climate or tax policies, or sanctions against Russian oligarchs.
In the Netherlands, the company Petrogas brought a claim in 2025 against tax measures adopted in 2022, based on the Dutch treaty with Oman. The claim targets the temporary solidarity contribution on windfall profits and the temporary increase in extraction royalties for the period 2023-2024. The Dutch government has also revealed that the dispute over the windfall tax was likely to discourage further action in this area in 2026. Shell, for its part, launched arbitration proceedings in December 2025 against the early closure of the Groningen gas field, based on the Energy Charter Treaty.
In addition, 40 proceedings had already been recorded in June 2026 in the context of the European sanctions against Russia, with around USD 63 billion claimed. 88.8% of them target Member States or the European Union itself (2).

Incompatibility of investment agreements with EU law
As in the December complaints, the organisations rely on the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union: first, judgments C-205/06, C-249/06 and C-118/07 (3), which concern the incompatibility of pre-accession treaties with EU law, in particular with the EU's ability to adopt sanctions; and second, Opinion 1/17 on CETA, which concerns the investor-state dispute settlement mechanism.
« We welcome the filing of these two new infringement complaints, which highlight the obsolete nature of the networks of investment agreements of all Member States. After the cascade of withdrawals from the Energy Charter Treaty (4), it seems difficult to justify maintaining these agreements as they are. In the absence of political will from Member States, it is up to the Commission to demand the termination or renegotiation of these treaties, inherited from another era. » – Mathilde Dupré, co-director of the Veblen Institute

Notes:

(1) About the complaints of December 2025
(2) See the interim assessment published in June 2026
(3) In these judgments, the Court held that Austria, Sweden and Finland had failed to fulfil their obligations by not removing the incompatibilities of their pre-accession treaties.
(4) Sweden officially notified its withdrawal on 6 October, Bulgaria in August, Romania in May and Ireland in April, bringing to 14 the total number of Member States that have already left the ECT. As a reminder, the European Commission sent a letter of formal notice to the 16 Member States that remained parties to the ECT in January 2026. (see the dedicated website)

Using Regulated Savings to finance climate adaptation : the case of French Livret A

Wojtek Kalinowski — 2026-10-01T14:30:35Z

In a new study (available only in French), the Veblen Institute examines the government's proposal to raise the ceiling on the Livret A savings account in order to fund its climate adaptation plan.

In early October, the Minister for Ecological Transition, Monique Barbut, is due to present an action plan to accelerate climate adaptation and is considering mobilising regulated savings by raising the ceiling on the Livret A savings account from 23,000 to 30,000 euros, which would, in theory, enable up to 10 billion euros to be raised each year.

Funding for the climate adaptation plan can draw on Livret A and LDDS savings accounts, but raising the ceiling will not be enough to mobilise the additional 10 billion euros mentioned. We must also address the issue of the low appeal of these savings accounts under current conditions, as illustrated by the outflow observed since autumn 2025. This outflow is specific to regulated savings, as non-regulated bank savings accounts have seen their outstanding balances increase over the same period.

To address this issue, this note sets out and discusses four possible options:

– Making the Livret A savings account more attractive. Raising interest rates would be counterproductive, as it would make loans to local authorities, which are indexed to the Livret A rate, more expensive. Preferential treatment under inheritance law or a public fundraising campaign along the lines of the "grands emprunts" are possible options, but these are merely complementary or long-term solutions.

– Increase taxation on other savings products, particularly life insurance. Aligning the tax treatment of life insurance with that of other investments (18.6%) would generate revenue of only around one billion euros. Reaching 10 billion would require an overall rate of close to 24% with a risk of capital flight and strong political resistance. This is not a realistic option in the short term.

– Increase the proportion of funds collected that are managed centrally. Increasing the proportion managed by the "Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations" from 60% to 61.7% would generate more than 10 billion euros for targeted jobs.
– Strengthen the conditions attached to decentralised management. As regulated savings benefit from public guarantees, access to these funds should be subject to more specific conditions: a clear classification of adaptation investments, annual loan volumes by category, and greater transparency regarding the allocation of loans.

Recommendation:

The quickest and least costly solution is to increase the proportion of centralised savings managed directly by the Caisse des Dépôts et des Consignations (CDC). Even a modest increase in the centralised share from 60% to 61.5% would redirect nearly 10 billion towards a targeted allocation, channelled directly towards public adaptation objectives. It is important to avoid negative effects on the balance sheets of the banks that currently manage 40 per cent of the funds collected; to this end, the increase should be phased in gradually and apply only to incoming funds, until the new allocation formula is reached.

Analysis of the JRC report on pesticide mirror measures - Key findings and advocacy implications

Mathilde Dupré & Stéphanie Kpenou — 2026-10-01T14:10:46Z

This summer, the European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC) published a study on the proposal to ban residues of some of the most dangerous pesticides in imported products, a measure currently discussed as part of the “food and feed” omnibus regulation. Several press articles noted that lowering maximum residue levels (MRLs) to the limit of quantification (LOQ) for certain substances banned in the EU would significantly raise the prices of certain products, specifically, a 332% increase in the price of coffee.

However, that is not what the JRC report says. That is why the Veblen Institute - together with CNCD-11.11.11, Humundi, Slow Food, and the FNH - is publishing an analysis of the JRC report on mirror measures on pesticides.

The JRC report represents a considerable and meticulous body of work. However, it focuses strictly on economic feasibility, commercial impacts, prices, and competitiveness associated with tightening import rules, while setting aside environmental and public health factors. Mirror measures should not be reduced to a mere instrument of agricultural protection or competitiveness: their environmental and public-health objectives - which fall outside the scope of the JRC's economic assessment - must be brought back to the centre of the debate. All the more so since, under WTO law, only environmental and public-health grounds can be invoked as justification — concerns about a level playing field in production conditions are not accepted.

Our analysis examines and challenges some assumptions and findings of the JRC report to provide evidence and arguments in favour of adopting more ambitious import requirements.

Main messages :

The study covers 18 active substances classified among the most hazardous under the EU criteria used in the Food and Feed Omnibus proposal, and the impact of MRLs set at the limit of quantification. It therefore assesses the least ambitious demand level, and it does not examine the effects of the broader measure proposed in the latest compromise.

The assumption of an abrupt halt in exports to the EU, resulting in a major inflationary economic shock—as modelled in the JRC's first scenario (S1)—is not only unrealistic: legitimising excessively high impact assumptions (S1 and S2) also undermines the prospects for more ambitious policy action.

S1 should not be used as a central forecast, but only as an upper bound. For country–commodity pairs involving a targeted substance with an EU MRL above the LOQ and evidence of authorisation or residue detection, it applies the shock to the entire trade flow, without scaling exposure to actual use or detection rates. It also assumes exporters do not adapt at all, which is unrealistic given historical examples (chlorpyrifos (2020), tricyclazole in rice exported from India and Pakistan (2018), or the neonicotinoids clothianidin and thiamethoxam (2026)).

The assumptions underpinning S3—which produces a limited inflationary impact—appear more relevant than those used in S2 and more consistent with the initial request to assess the effects of lowering MRLs to the limit of quantification for a small list of substances. S2 appears to overestimate both the share of trade flows potentially affected and the associated adaptation costs.

The significant impacts on the European livestock sector are not a robust finding. They occur mainly under S1, while becoming negligible in the two scenarios that allow exporters to adapt.

Additional historical case studies documenting how exporters have adapted, including potential spillover effects, would help provide a stronger evidence base on adaptation in exporting countries.

Imported Emissions: The Missing Link in Climate Policy

Mathilde Dupré & Stéphanie Kpenou — 2026-09-29T12:00:00Z

In a context of globalised trade, states' climate action suffers from a major blind spot: it ignores imported emissions, i.e. the greenhouse gas emissions that a country's final consumption generates in third countries (1). With its third national low-carbon strategy, France has become the first state to adopt an indicative target for reducing its carbon footprint — and therefore its imported emissions. Discussions are under way with other European countries to invite the EU to adopt an equivalent target. In a new paper, the Veblen Institute takes stock of the issue and puts forward recommendations for integrating this indicator into European climate objectives.

More than 20% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are currently linked to international trade, and since 1995 these emissions have been growing faster than global emissions themselves. Yet under the Paris Agreement, countries' commitments rest exclusively on territorial emissions. To date, the sum of current commitments falls short of the challenge. The warming trajectory that would result from countries meeting their current climate commitments is estimated at between 2.3°C and 2.5°C by 2100, according to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) (2).

Accounting for imported emissions is necessary to make the role of consumption visible and to hold net-importing countries accountable for their greenhouse gas emissions.

Tracking this indicator should help prevent "carbon leakage." This phenomenon occurs when a country reduces its territorial emissions while increasing its imported emissions, thereby shifting the burden of mitigation efforts onto its trading partners.
Accounting for imported emissions would help highlight the interdependencies between countries and coordinate the actions needed to decarbonise international value chains.
Accounting for and reducing imported emissions is also a matter of justice for producing countries, which directly bear the consequences of other countries' consumption.

Imported emissions need to be better measured and progressively integrated into climate objectives. In this context, a precondition for any progress is to measure these imported emissions by improving the way emissions from land use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF) are accounted for, as well as emissions linked to digital technology and data centres.

[Key 2023 data]

This month the European Climate Foundation launched the [Traded Emissions Tracker→https://emissions.netzerotrade.org/] to integrate climate impacts in third countries into domestic and international policymaking. Based mainly on Eurostat's FIGARO data (excluding LULUCF), this tool covers the 2010–2023 period and maps 45 countries (accounting for nearly 75% of global emissions) across 64 economic sectors.

Global level

Global GHG emissions: 51,831.53 MtCO₂e
Traded emissions: 11,249.25 MtCO₂e (i.e. 21.7% of global emissions)
More than a fifth of global emissions are thus generated by countries for other countries' final consumption
Leading importers: China (15%); United States (15%); EU (13%); India (6%); Others (51%)
Leading exporters: China (27%); Russia (7%); EU (6%); United States (6%); Others (54%)

European Union

Territorial emissions: 3,341.56 MtCO₂e (4th rank)
Imported emissions: 1,410.15 MtCO₂e (3rd rank) (i.e. 42% of EU territorial emissions)
Carbon footprint: 4,048.01 (4th rank) (21% higher than EU territorial emissions)

Main sectors of dependence on imported emissions
Energy production (377.93 Mt CO₂)
Mining and fossil fuels (344.8 Mt CO₂)
Agriculture and livestock (139.19 Mt CO₂)

Main exporters of emissions
China (370.08 Mt CO₂)
USA (95.26 Mt CO₂)
Russia (88 Mt CO₂)

France

Territorial emissions: 408.23 MtCO₂e (17th rank)
Imported emissions: 275.02 MtCO₂e (8th rank) (i.e. 67.36% of territorial emissions)
Carbon footprint: 553.70 MtCO₂e (16th rank) (35% higher than territorial emissions)

Main sectors of dependence on imported emissions
Energy production (63.25 Mt CO₂)
Mining and fossil fuels (53.39 Mt CO₂)
Agriculture and livestock (33.08 Mt CO₂)

Main exporters of emissions
China (48.2 Mt CO₂)
Germany (15.13 Mt CO₂)
United States (14.99 Mt CO₂)

Trends since the Paris Agreement:

Between 2015 and 2023, the EU's territorial emissions fell by 2.32% per year, while imported emissions kept rising by 1.41% per year over the same period.
French territorial emissions fell by 2.25% per year, while imported emissions declined by only 0.42% per year — a pace more than five times slower.

France leading the way. The third national low-carbon strategy (SNBC3), adopted in July 2026, sets a carbon footprint reduction target, making France the first country in the world to set such a quantified target (3). The carbon footprint must be reduced by 38% to 43% by 2030 (i.e. between 426 and 464 Mt) and by 71% to 79% by 2050 (i.e. between 160 and 215 Mt) relative to 2010 (749 Mt), bringing the average footprint down to between 2.3 and 3.1 tCO₂e per capita (4). That said, the footprint reduction target is not binding, only indicative. The SNBC's targets imply reducing French imported emissions by 3.1% to 5.3% per year (5).

For both institutional and economic reasons, however, the potential of isolated action by a single member state in this area remains limited. The European level appears more relevant for mobilising all possible levers. All the more so as the EU already has initial regulatory instruments in place, such as the CBAM, the regulation on imported deforestation, the ecodesign regulation, and initiatives aimed at better regulating value chains (notably the corporate sustainability due diligence directive).

But the sometimes chaotic development of these European tools so far seems to have been designed more to avoid exposing European producers to environmentally less-compliant imports than to genuinely reduce the carbon footprint of European consumption — an objective that remains a major blind spot at European level.

France must take the lead in pushing for changes to the European framework in order to:

Track the trend in imported emissions (create a harmonised, regular EU-wide monitoring system for imported emissions)
Set targets for reducing imported emissions (complement territorial GHG reduction targets with a European trajectory on imported emissions).
Other member states also already account for their imported emissions or carbon footprint and could become allies in securing the definition of an EU-wide target.

Recommendations:

Encourage the adoption of carbon footprint or imported emissions reduction targets at European and international level, to complement the territorial approach. At European level, this objective should be integrated into the revision of the Energy Union and Climate Action governance framework — which underpins the National Energy and Climate Plans (NECPs) — expected in Q4 2026.
Unify and improve the carbon footprint calculation methodology: in the longer term, the challenge will also be to properly account for LULUCF-related emissions and emissions linked to digital technology and data centres.
Speed up data publication for the EU and its member states (currently published with longer delays than territorial emissions). Properly reallocating, as planned for 2027, emissions from electricity, gas and steam production (currently grouped into a single "Energy production" sector) to the consuming economic sectors would provide a more accurate picture of each sector's carbon intensity. Note that these publication delays for imported emissions, together with the failure to break down the energy production sector, risk leaving the EU and its member states ill-equipped to define, in time, the sustainability rules needed to address the growing challenge of imported emissions linked to digital technology and artificial intelligence.

Notes to editors
(1) Imported emissions should be distinguished from a country's carbon footprint, which covers all emissions associated with a country's consumption, wherever they were emitted (domestic territory or third countries).
(2) UNEP, Emissions Gap Report 2025: Off Target. Continued collective inaction puts global temperature goal at risk, November 2025. Current policies alone would put warming at 2.8°C.
(3) France's third [National Low-Carbon Strategy→https://www.ecologie.gouv.fr/strate...], July 2026.
(4) The range reflects the influence of decarbonisation in the rest of the world, under global 1.5°C to 2°C scenarios.
(5) Nicolas Riedinger, [The carbon footprint: reconciling climate and sovereignty→https://www.strategie-plan.gouv.fr/...], Point de vue, Haut-Commissariat à la stratégie et au plan, September 2026.

France: a major player in the global investment arbitration industry

Mathilde Dupré — 2026-09-22T07:39:31Z

In a new study (available only in French, the Veblen Institute highlights France's position within the investment arbitration industry.

Paris has become one of the world's leading centres for investment arbitration, a controversial mechanism that grants international investors the right to sue the host states of their investments in order to secure potentially colossal financial compensation. This right may be exercised when governments adopt new regulations that are likely to affect their investments or their expected profits.

Based on an analysis of known investment arbitration cases and the key players in the sector, the study shows that France occupies a strategic position within this industry.

Paris, one of the world's arbitration capitals

The arbitration industry is well established in France and actively promotes its activities, particularly by highlighting the economic benefits and international influence it believes it generates for the country According to a 2025 study by FTI Consulting, the Paris market for international arbitration (commercial and investment) is worth nearly €775 million a year and supports several thousand jobs, mainly within specialist law firms, expert firms, arbitration institutions and third-party funders.

France is pursuing a strategy aimed at enhancing its appeal as an international arbitration centre. Already recognised as such thanks to the presence of the headquarters of the International Court of Arbitration of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), Paris is consolidating this position with the forthcoming opening of a European office of the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID). This development also forms part of the ongoing reform of French arbitration law, which aims to modernise and further enhance the attractiveness of the national legal framework, which is already highly favourable to arbitration.

All these factors combine to make Paris one of the world's leading centres for arbitration, including in the field of Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS).

With regard to ISDS, the study reveals that:

– France ranks third in the world, both in terms of the number of arbitrators involved in disputes and the total number of cases handled by these arbitrators.
– In total, 54 French arbitrators have taken part in 405 known proceedings.
– The vast majority of French arbitrators are appointed by the respondent States.
– Among the 395 cases recorded involving at least one French arbitrator, 98 different States were respondents, demonstrating the presence of French arbitrators in disputes spanning all the major regions of the world.
– Latin America is the region most frequently involved in disputes in which French arbitrators are involved, followed by the European Union in second place. These two regions account for more than half of the disputes.
– There is a certain concentration of disputes relating to the energy sector and the extractive industries.
– French arbitrators are more frequently associated with decisions favourable to states. Cases involving at least one French arbitrator are decided in favour of the state in 61.8% of cases, compared with 51.8% when no French arbitrator sits on the tribunal. This trend is particularly pronounced when the French arbitrator chairs the tribunal (66.1% of decisions in favour of states) and when the French arbitrator is appointed by the claimant investor (61.1%).

This context helps explain the persistent reluctance of successive French governments to give up investment arbitration, despite growing concerns about the restrictions it can impose on states' regulatory powers nd the financial costs that arbitration proceedings and their unfavourable outcomes can entail for them (1). However, the experience gained by French arbitrators acting as state respondents in ISDS disputes should provide a basis for much more far-reaching reforms of this investment protection regime.

This is illustrated by the remarks made by Alain Pellet, a French arbitrator (2), at the 11th Annual Conference on Investment Treaties at the OECD on 30 March 2026:

“The settlement of disputes between states is not perfect, but it is less imperfect than the settlement of disputes between investors and states. The current circumstances are truly conducive to making a genuine effort to improve the settlement of disputes between states. We are at a turning point where it is reasonable to think that we can try to combine the proposals. This is truly an opportunity to try to move away from this obsession with ISDS, which I find rather dreadful. There are many other ways to protect investments and attract investment than to place one's trust in this limited form of dispute settlement.”

The study thus highlights France's central role in the investment arbitration industry, both as an arbitration centre and through the influence exerted by its arbitrators in ISDS proceedings. It therefore emphasises France's particular responsibility in the debate on the future development of this regime.

Our recommendations:

Ensure transparency regarding cases and the financial sums involved: make it compulsory for arbitral institutions to publish details of all RDIE proceedings, the sums claimed and those ultimately awarded.
Stop the expansion of investment arbitration: France and the EU should refrain from including investment protection provisions featuring an ISDS mechanism or the investment court system(3) in new trade and/or investment agreements.
Phasing out investment arbitration
● Systematic termination of existing bilateral investment treaties (BITs). In particular, the European Commission should call on EU Member States to put an end to the old BITs, which are incompatible with European law. This incompatibility is the subject of an infringement complaint (4) brought by several civil society organisations against four Member States (France, Germany, Sweden and Austria).
● At the very least, France and the EU should undertake a review of the existing stock of treaties to ensure they meet the key requirements set out by the European Parliament in 2022 (5)

Notes:
(1) This position was particularly evident during the trade negotiations between the European Union and Canada. Whilst the European Commission was considering abandoning plans to include a chapter on investment protection in the trade negotiations with Canada, it was France which, in 2015 and with Germany's support, proposed a procedural reform of the mechanism in order to retain it.
(2) Alain Pellet is Professor emeritus at the University of Paris Nanterre, former Chair of the United Nations International Law Commission, appointed to the ICSID List of Arbitrators by the Chair of the Administrative Council (2011–2017) and to the List of Arbitrators under Annex VII of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (since 2015)
(3) The EU has recently concluded several agreements containing chapters on investment protection, such as the treaties with Canada, Singapore, Vietnam and Chile, which are awaiting ratification by the Member States, as well as the EU–Mexico Agreement, which is awaiting ratification at EU level
(4) About the complaint
(5) European Parliament, resolution of 23 June 2022 on the future of the EU's international investment policy (2021/2176(INI))

The EU mirror measure on antibiotics in livestock farming could result in Brazil losing all access to the European market for meat

Mathilde Dupré & Stéphanie Kpenou — 2026-05-13T09:04:18Z

A new ban on the use of growth-promoting antibiotics in livestock farming for meat imported into the EU will enter into force in September 2026, and currently, Brazil is not among the exporting countries able to guarantee compliance with European requirements. The country has been removed from the list, updated on 12 May, of third countries authorised to export meat and animal products to the EU (1).

This mirror measure aimed at combating the scourge of antimicrobial resistance was adopted in 2019 and will only enter into force on 2 September 2026 — more than seven years later (2). The measure extends to operators in third countries exporting animals or products of animal origin to the European Union the prohibition, already applicable within the EU since 2006, on the use of antibiotics as growth promoters in livestock farming. In order to be imported into the EU, animal products must be accompanied by an official certificate of compliance and originate from a third country included on a list of approved third countries (3).

The absence of Brazil from the list published on Tuesday, 12 May by the European authorities of countries currently authorised to export meat to the EU is a real bombshell, coming just days after the start of the provisional application of the EU-Mercosur trade agreement, which is specifically intended to increase these flows of beef and poultry meat in particular.

Brazil can still bring itself into compliance by September. To do so, it will notably have to adopt new rules, monitor their implementation and ensure transparency throughout the value chains of its meat sectors. However, the date from which such changes could trigger a reauthorisation of exports also depends on production timelines for the first animals that have never received antibiotics as growth promoters.

The reactions of the Brazilian authorities are not yet known. The country does, however, have several avenues of recourse to challenge the application of this European text, notably through the rebalancing mechanism of the EU/Mercosur trade agreement, which entered into provisional application on 1 May.

Notes
(1) The list of authorised countries is available at this link.
(2) See the study by the Institut Veblen, When Will Imports of Meat from Animals Doped with Growth-Promoting Antibiotics Finally End?, June 2024.
(3) In addition to the very long delays in the implementation of this mirror measure, the practical arrangements for its implementation have considerably weakened its scope. A first delegated regulation intended to define the conditions for implementation was published on 27 February 2023 (although it should have been adopted before 28 January 2022). This regulation requires imported animal products to be accompanied by an official certificate of compliance with the prohibition laid down in Regulation 2019/6. These products must also originate from a third country or a region of a third country appearing on a list of approved third countries. The first implementing act (published only on 29 January 2024) provides for an obligation on operators in third countries to complete a self-declaration certifying that the meat complies with the prohibition established by European legislation. This obligation will only enter into force as of 3 September 2026. For the measure to become fully applicable, it still remained necessary to update the list of third countries approved to export their animal products to the European Union. Furthermore, the French authorities had long feared that the measure would only cover antibiotics administered as veterinary medicinal products and not as feed additives, which would represent only a tiny fraction of the uses by producers in third countries exporting their meat to the EU. However, the European Commission reportedly confirmed last February that, despite its scope formally relating to veterinary medicinal products, the text would indeed cover both uses.

Money & Finance Programme

2026-05-04T10:52:02Z

"New Approaches in Transition Finance" as a project run our the Money & Finance" Program in coopération with the Chair "Energie & Prospérité" at Institut Louis Bachelier. It is supported by the Charles-Léopold Mayer Foundation and the European Climate Foundation,

Publications and events linked to this project

Members of the working group

Presentation

Conflicts and geopolitical crises serve as a reminder of the need to accelerate the energy transition away from fossil fuel dependency, but the need for massive investment in Europe extends across many other areas: reindustrialisation, climate adaptation, defence, infrastructure, transport… Yet many investments considered strategic are not profitable enough to attract private investors spontaneously; to bridge the gap, the role of "impact finance" remains limited and current banking and financial regulation is not designed to direct financial flows accordingly. All these areas therefore require a variable but significant share of public funding — the latest evaluation report on the France 2030 programme still calls for "a public investment plan in the infrastructure needed for the transition to a low-carbon economy" and for additional support measures for business investment in the decarbonisation of industrial processes.

At the European level, the Savings and Investments Union promises to "unlock" private investment through securitisation and better market integration, without providing instruments to narrow the gap between socio-economic utility and financial profitability, as we analyse in our note « Financing Europe's Strategic Objectives ».

This role therefore falls to public subsidies financed primarily through debt. Yet the room for manoeuvre of states such as France is increasingly constrained by current debt levels and the rules of the Stability Pact. As for the amounts redistributed within the economy through tools such as the ETS system, carbon taxes or energy savings certificates, they represent an important but wholly insufficient source of financing.

The need to invest in the future on one side, warnings about public debt on the other — the financial equation is a difficult one, and calls for a broader debate on financing tools and costs. This project contributes on three fronts:

– Producing proposals for European and national public decision-makers — on reforms to financial instruments, budgetary rules and governance frameworks needed to genuinely direct financing towards strategic objectives.
– Organising the policy debate bringing together researchers, public decision-makers and financing actors, to compare analyses and circulate proposals across academic, institutional and political circles.
– Making these issues accessible to a non-specialist audience: journalists, civil society organisations, and engaged citizens.

Themes

The programme explores four complementary areas:

– The cost of financing and levers for directing flows towards public objectives. What levers does public authority have to direct financial flows — banking and financial regulation, taxation, central bank refinancing, institutional investors, public development banks?

– The effectiveness of blended finance. Public guarantees, green loans, convertible bonds, equity stakes: how can the real impact of these tools be assessed? Is the sharing of risks and gains from "de-risking" equitable between the public and private sectors? How can mobilised volumes be increased while avoiding the privatisation of benefits and the socialisation of risks? See our note « Financing future investments: a political challenge for Europe ».

– Securitisation as an investment lever. Securitisation lies at the heart of the SIU, but was also central to the great financial crisis of 2007-2008. Is it necessary to finance the real economy? What risks does it pose to financial stability? Does "green" securitisation, with conditionalities on the use of freed-up credit capacity, offer a viable model?

– Prudential regulation and productive financing. Do capital requirements really harm banking competitiveness and the financing of productive investment? Or do better-capitalised banks in fact lend more consistently and prove more resilient? We have contributed to this debate in our response to the European Commission's consultation on banking regulation and the competitiveness of the EU banking sector, as well as in our analysis of the easing of capital requirements in the United States.

The full list of publications and events related to the programme is available on the Veblen Institute website.

Financing Europe's strategic objectives

Wojtek Kalinowski — 2026-04-30T09:52:00Z

Insufficient investment in key policy areas impedes the pursuit of EU's objectives and weakens Europe's competitiveness in global markets. Trying to address this problem, the Commission launched in 2025 the Savings and Investment Union as a central piece of its Competitiveness Compass and hoping to channel more credit and savings into productive investments.

But the SIU is not designed to address the underlying reasons for weak investment in areas where financial flows are misaligned with strategic priorities. The only additional EU policy tool proposed for steering financial flows towards political objectives is “blending” private and public funding through the InvestEU fund and the future Competitive Fund. But closing the investment gap will require complementary measures in financial regulation and monetary policy.

This policy brief is a part of the "New approaches in transition finance" project

KEY MESSAGES

• Closing the gap requires steering tools, not only scaling tools. EU's investment shortfall is not primarily a problem of insufficient finance, but of finance that is systematically misaligned with strategic priorities. Many of investments which are highly relevant to EU's policy objectives present risk-return profiles that do not match private investors' expectations.
• The SIUs drive for stronger market integration as about scaling; it promotes the common European market but does little to steer finance towards these investments.
• The same goes for the revival of securitization, a central piece of the SIU. The additional investments promised through banks balance sheet are theoretical and there's no guarantee that they will concern investments of relevance for the EU's policies. In addition, securitization might create new financial risks.
• The SIU missed the opportunity to opt for green securitization with strong conditionalities.
• Measures to improve access to venture capital are important to scale up technological innovation, but these segments do not reflect the overall financing needs of the economy.
• Financing strategic objectives relies therefore on public subsidies and blended finance instruments.
• Complementary measures are necessary and could be deployed in the fields of financial regulation, monetary policy and macroeconomic coordination.

Download "Financing Europe's strategic objectives"

European ISDS Scorecard: a ranking of the harmful effects of 30 countries' investment treaties

Mathilde Dupré — 2026-04-21T22:30:00Z

France ranked among the most active European countries in developing and maintaining the investor–state dispute settlement (ISDS) mechanism.

France ranks as the fourth most active country in Europe in supporting the international investment arbitration regime, according to a new study (1) published by a coalition of eight European organisations, including the Veblen Institute, Powershift and CAN Europe (2). These findings are released on the eve of the first International Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels, to be held from 24 to 29 April in Colombia, during which the investor–state dispute settlement (ISDS) system will be examined as a major obstacle to the defossilisation of our economies.

Arbitration tribunals, known as investor–state dispute settlement (ISDS) mechanisms, are provisions embedded in many trade and investment agreements. They allow investors (multinational corporations or individuals) to sue governments before private tribunals outside domestic legal systems over public interest policies — such as environmental protection or public health regulation — that they claim harm their profits, with compensation awards often reaching millions or even billions of euros.

The report entitled “Investment Arbitration Index: A Comparative Analysis of the Harmful Effects of Treaties Across 30 European Countries”, published today alongside an interactive “scoreboard”, ranks 30 European countries (3) to measure the scale of their investment treaty networks, their actual use by investors, and their concrete impacts. The index is based on ten indicators, including the number of agreements signed with ISDS provisions, their use in sensitive sectors such as fossil fuels, and the amounts of compensation claimed and awarded.

The report highlights Europe's pivotal role in the global ISDS architecture and underscores the responsibility of a small group of countries — the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Germany, France and Switzerland — which account for a significant share of the treaties, disputes and climate risks generated by this opaque system.

The ranking reveals that:

The United Kingdom ranks first among countries responsible for the development and maintenance of ISDS; British investors are particularly active in ISDS proceedings in the mining and fossil fuel sectors.
The Netherlands follows closely behind; Dutch investors (often using shell companies with no substantial economic activity) have initiated more ISDS proceedings than those from any other European country.
France is characterised by treaties covering a large volume of investments linked to future greenhouse gas emissions and containing very long survival clauses. This configuration may constitute a structural obstacle to the adoption of ambitious energy transition policies.
Ireland is the only country with no bilateral investment treaties with other states (although this may soon change if EU trade agreements containing ISDS provisions enter into force) (4), and Norway has already terminated half of its relatively small number of treaties, demonstrating that European countries can choose alternative paths.

The report makes several recommendations:

That European governments stop signing new agreements containing investment protection chapters with ISDS or an Investment Court System mechanism. (4)
That they begin systematically terminating existing treaties. For treaties containing “sunset clauses” — which allow provisions to remain in force for a period often ranging from 10 to 20 years after termination — countries should pursue “coordinated withdrawals” to neutralise them.
That they cooperate with other countries, including outside Europe, to promote a broader exit from the ISDS system.

Examples of cases

The consequences of treaty networks, rooted in post-colonial economic relationships, are felt particularly strongly in countries of the Global South, which are the target of the majority of ISDS claims. France has been the home state of investors in 69 cases; for example, the disputes initiated in 2021 by Vinci against Peru and Chile over the economic effects of public health measures adopted during the pandemic (5).

However, European countries themselves are increasingly targeted by claims, notably in connection with environmental policies. Severgroup and KN Holdings, two investment companies controlled by sanctioned Russian oligarch A. Mordashov, initiated a proceeding against France in 2021 under the France–Russia BIT, seeking €4.5 billion in compensation following the French government's withdrawal of support for the Montagne d'Or open-pit gold mining megaproject in French Guiana. France is also being sued by Russo-Armenian businessman S. Karapetyan, whose villa on the French Riviera was seized amid allegations of money laundering and acting as a nominee for the sanctioned oil and gas giant Gazprom. This case forms part of a recent wave of claims in Europe directly challenging sanctions imposed following Russia's invasion of Ukraine (6).

Santa Marta Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels

This publication also comes ahead of the first Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels, to be held from 24 to 29 April in Santa Marta, Colombia — a country that has just announced its intention to withdraw from the ISDS system. ISDS is among the central items on the conference agenda, and organisations across Europe are calling on their governments to “seize this opportunity” to plan a coordinated withdrawal from the ISDS regime together with other participating countries (7).

According to Mathilde Dupré, Co-Director of the Veblen Institute:
“This report reveals the responsibility of European countries in establishing and maintaining an investment protection regime that is incompatible with states' current commitments to environmental protection and national security. The termination of intra-EU treaties and withdrawal from the Energy Charter Treaty have only partially reduced the risks that this system poses to our democracies. It is time to address the stock of older treaties held by EU Member States in order to reduce, in parallel, the risks faced by countries in the Global South.”

For Stéphanie Kpenou, Programme Officer for Trade Policy Reform at the Veblen Institute:
“France must seize the major opportunity offered by the upcoming conference in Colombia on transitioning away from fossil fuels to unlock investment protection constraints, starting with this sector.”

Notes

(1) The full report is available in English and French, and the results can be accessed online on this website.
(2) The report is jointly published by the Veblen Institute, Powershift (Germany), Global Justice Now and Trade Justice Movement (UK), TROCA (Portugal), Alliance Sud (Switzerland), CAN Europe and the European Coalition for Just Trade.
(3) The index ranks 30 European countries — the 27 EU Member States plus Norway, Switzerland and the United Kingdom — according to their structural involvement in the ISDS system. It adopts a home-state perspective, examining which treaty networks and economic actors feed the system as sources of ISDS claims. Ten indicators measure different dimensions of this involvement, ranging from the size of a country's treaty network to the number and financial scale of disputes initiated by its investors, as well as the fossil fuel assets covered by those treaties. Raw values were normalised, weighted to produce a composite score, and transformed onto a 0–10 scale, where a higher score indicates greater involvement in the ISDS system. The full methodology is available in the annex to the report.
(4) The EU has recently concluded several agreements containing investment protection chapters, including treaties with Canada, Singapore, Vietnam and Chile, pending ratification by Member States, as well as the EU–Mexico agreement pending ratification at EU level.
(5) See the UNCTAD online France page.
(6) See the report “Frozen Assets, Hot Claims: How Russian Oligarchs and Other Investors Use Investment Arbitration to Challenge Sanctions”, December 2025.
(7) See the Veblen Institute brief on the obstacles posed by investment arbitration to phasing out fossil fuels, published on the occasion of the Santa Marta Conference.

Residues of pesticides banned in the EU in imported food: ending a dangerous and unjust double standard

Mathilde Dupré & Stéphanie Kpenou — 2026-04-21T08:14:23Z

An independent legal opinion commissioned by the Veblen Institute, PAN Europe and foodwatch concludes that the EU practice of allowing residues of banned pesticides in imported food is highly questionable from an EU law perspective.

European consumers are exposed, through their food, to residues of hazardous pesticides banned on our market. Residues of at least 88 pesticide substances not approved in the EU are still allowed in imported products. Of these substances, 13% are classified as carcinogenic, mutagenic and toxic to reproduction (CMR) or as endocrine disruptors. Six PFAS pesticides, known as ‘forever chemicals', are also included among these substances (1).

Currently, when a pesticide is banned in the EU, its residue limits are not automatically lowered. Instead, the Commission sets import tolerances for pesticides used in third countries, or adopts residue limits set at international level by the Codex Alimentarius Commission.

In abriefing note, the three organisations outline the key points of the legal opinion and put forward proposals to address this shortcoming.

The findings confirm that, under the current EU legal provisions, the Commission not only has the power, but also the obligation to stop allowing these residues.

For pesticides banned on public health grounds, the practice of authorising residues of EU-banned pesticides is illegal. Import tolerances cannot apply to substances not authorised in the EU on public health grounds. Allowing such residues is contrary to the MRL Regulation, which requires the automatic deletion of MRLs following the revocation of an active substance in the EU. The EC's practice also breaches fundamental EU principles (the principle of regulatory equivalence and the principle of non-discrimination, which protects EU farmers from unfair competition from third-country producers).

The situation is more complex for pesticides banned on environmental grounds, as the MRL Regulation was originally designed to protect consumers. However, the Commission's recent measures regarding neonicotinoids show that change is possible within the current framework. A revision of the MRL Regulation to include environmental protection would strengthen future action. Furthermore, this regulation should also cover crops intended for animal feed, energy production and ornamental purposes.

The ‘omnibus' simplification package on food and feed safety proposes measures to address this situation. However, the proposal currently on the table is insufficient and largely symbolic. Under this proposal, the vast majority of banned pesticides would continue to enter the EU via food imports. It covers only a limited subset, representing around 22% of EU-banned substances (2). Furthermore, the omnibus significantly weakens the general legal framework governing pesticides and their residues. It is therefore unacceptable as it stands.

To address this long-standing shortcoming, the Omnibus Regulation must introduce a clear and binding obligation on the Commission to automatically ban residues of any pesticide not approved in the EU, regardless of the reason for the ban and for all food products. Any less stringent measure would perpetuate a system that knowingly allows harmful substances to end up on Europeans' plates and undermines the EU's own standards.

Notes
(1) List based on banned and restricted active substances included in the Prior Consent Inform (PIC) Regulation
(2) The Omnibus proposal covers active substances that are Carcinogenic, Mutagenic and Toxic for reproduction (CMR) Categories 1A/1B, Endocrine Disruptors for humans or non-target organism, Persistent Organic Pollutant (POP), Persistent, Bioaccumulative and Toxic (PBT), or very Persistent and very Bioaccumulative (vPvB). We calculated, on the basis of available data, that 20 of the 88 substances meet these criteria. While official lists exist for CMR substances and endocrine disruptors, no equivalent official list of PBT/vPvB substances has been established at EU level. This figure should therefore be treated as an estimate.