Advanced Framework Agreement between the European Union and its Member States, of the one part, and the Republic of Chile, of the other part

Lorena Delgado Varas (V)

Madam Speaker! No one in this chamber can deny the importance of trade relations for connecting different regions and cultures and that they force us to relate to one another. Vänsterpartiet believes that trade is a tool for exchanging products, skills, and creativity that enriches the lives of people living in the involved areas. Trade should move development forward both for us and for those on the other side of the trade. But all too often, trade has been used as a tool to exploit, plunder, and further enrich the rich countries at the expense of other countries. This needs to change, but unfortunately, we do not see such a development in the agreements that Europe makes with third countries. Rather, it is about securing raw materials that we need for our development and ensuring that our export companies increase their profits. There is no room to allow development and prosperity at the same level as for Europe, for example, and in this case Chile.

This expansion of previous agreements with Chile could ultimately threaten efforts to combat global warming. It could undermine Chile's plans for industrial development and threaten small and medium-sized farmers. The agreement protects investments in fossil fuels and grants investors exemptions from following the Chilean government's climate policy. The agreement also lacks effective tools to address corruption, poverty, and inequality. It does not protect workers' rights sufficiently. It does not protect small and sustainable agriculture. It does not guarantee the rights of indigenous peoples or the democratic rights in the country.

This agreement actually implies a limited sovereignty for Chile, where transnational companies, which already have too much power, now get even more room. They can actually stop Chile from being more ambitious when it comes to environmental and climate goals. This agreement does not let Chile grow. It locks the country into continuing to be a raw material and agricultural producer.

This agreement also does not address the great economic inequality in Chile or the discrimination of indigenous peoples, environmental destruction, and sale of water rights that occur in Chile. These remain. This agreement will lead to more of the negative spiral that Chile is in, where they meet agricultural volumes through monoculture, through drainage of entire valleys, by starving out small-scale farmers and by selling water sources to, among others, European companies and in this way displacing people from the fertile agricultural areas.

One example is Petorca, which I have raised here in the chamber earlier. There, European companies buy up avocados planted in the valley's monoculture. The avocados are irrigated using purchased water rights. They need to use approximately 600 liters of water per kilogram of avocado. Because the water sources are purchased, they cannot be used by anyone except the avocado growers. This has resulted in the natural water flow being stopped and the river drying up. Virtually all small-scale farmers have seen their animals die of thirst and their crops dry out. They have been forced to flee from there or work for the large monocultures that took away their livelihood. If you travel along the old farms in Petorca – they are not that old, perhaps five or ten years – you are met with fences full of animal skulls, as a reminder of all the animals that died from the drought.

Another example is southern Chile, where European companies build hydroelectric dams against the will of the indigenous people, where their communities, cemeteries, roads, and forests are submerged. If they protest, they are criminalized – such as machi Millaray, whom I have met several times, a Mapuche leader who tries to protect the Pilmaiken river but who has repeatedly been imprisoned, persecuted, and attacked by the police. In this area, over 130 Mapuche communities have joined together to try to protect the river, but they are still not listened to.

I can give more examples. If we look a bit further back in history, we see Boliden's waste, a toxic waste that according to Boliden was too expensive to handle in Sweden. They then found the opportunity to send it to Chile, which was a dictatorship at the time. And so they did, without requirements or follow-up. Even today, children and adults are poisoned by the waste, which is still not being handled correctly.

The agreement being written today does not repair the stain of shame that the toxic waste is. Nor does it repair the environmental destruction that the large European companies are responsible for today, and it will probably not repair the future environmental destruction either. This will probably be paid for entirely by the affected local population.

We from Vänsterpartiet wish that the interests of all people were kept in mind when such agreements are written, especially since the EU intends to secure a part of the mineral supply through the exploitation of, among other things, lithium. Just the lithium exploitation, which I have raised earlier here in the chamber, is a process that requires large volumes of water, which will affect areas that already have problems with water supply.

If Chile is to secure our supply, we must contribute to securing not only the prosperity of the local communities but also the opportunities for further processing. The water issue is, as mentioned, a recurring criticism since Chile has privatized the water, and today a large part of the companies that own the water rights are European. We therefore have a great responsibility in this. Those who are affected are, as usual, small-scale farmers, indigenous peoples, women and children. This is also something that we need to take responsibility for.

That these parts are not included is due to the fact that the agreement was written by and for the economic and political elite. Here, no indigenous peoples have been allowed to participate, nor have the small-scale farmers who are forced to leave their lands, the children who are poisoned by European pesticides, or those who today die because of Boliden's waste. Had these groups been allowed to participate, as a democratic process should proceed, the agreement would have benefited many instead of a few. It would also have benefited us by our small-scale farmers having better competitive conditions, by us having better food on the table, and by our prosperity not having been built on the destruction of other countries' environments and human lives.

If I am to highlight something positive about the agreement, it is the part where the parties commit to measures to counter the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. In that case, it might be appropriate if Sweden introduced national legislation prohibiting the import, storage, and transit of nuclear weapons. That would have been consistent.

I vote in favor of the reservation.

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Jacob Risberg (MP)

Madam Speaker! Today we were to debate the Committee on Foreign Affairs' report Advanced Framework Agreement between the European Union and its Member States, on the one hand, and the Republic of Chile, on the other. But it does not seem like there will be much debate, as the Tidö coalition has not even managed to send a single member. One might get the impression that the government parties do not consider trade agreements to be an important issue.

In any case, I will not stand here and disparage my opponents, but instead highlight what Miljöpartiet thinks about this specific framework agreement.

The EU has had an association agreement since 2003, which includes a free trade agreement, with Chile. Since 2016, a new agreement has been negotiated with the aim of including additional trade liberalization provisions that go beyond the WTO commitments, the so-called new generation free trade agreements. The modernization or update also includes chapters on human rights, the rule of law and good governance, equality and the empowerment of women and girls, legal cooperation, drug problems, international migration and asylum, crime fighting and the fight against corruption and cross-border organized crime, as well as sustainable development. All of this is, of course, good.

Madam Speaker! For many years, Miljöpartiet has called for a fundamental review of the EU's free trade agreements and fought for a sustainable, development-oriented trade agenda that contributes to, and does not hinder, a just and inclusive green transition.

Thanks to the green group's continuous pressure in Brussels to place sustainability high in the EU's trade agreements, we have succeeded in getting trade sanctions pushed through in the event of violations of the Paris Agreement and the ILO's core conventions as part of the EU's new strategy in chapter after chapter on trade and sustainable development. The trade agreement between the EU and New Zealand, for example, was the first to include such an approach, which was very positive. This trade agreement with New Zealand should serve as a model for the development of new trade agreements.

But despite the ambition for a new generation of agreements, the EU's determination has not been sufficiently strong regarding sustainability in many of the agreements. So even in this case.

At the same time as we support the strengthening of political and economic ties with Chile, the update of the agreement between the EU and Chile is a missed opportunity when it comes to strengthening the implementation of sustainability criteria.

Madam Speaker! One of the greatest shortcomings in the agreement with Chile is, in our opinion, the lack of enforceability of the chapter on trade and sustainable development. The chapter on investor protection also conflicts with the EU's climate commitments.

The political and cooperation pillars generally cover most of our concerns, particularly in relation to, among other things, human rights, equality, climate change, oceans, drug trafficking and the participation of non-governmental organizations. The agreement also contains an anti-corruption protocol.

We are, however, skeptical that the political and cooperative pillars lack binding commitments or mandatory measures. Furthermore, the agreement lacks a coherent global architecture that links the different parts of the agreement to ensure the applicability of human rights commitments within the various pillars, including precisely trade and investment.

The chapter on sustainable food systems and equality has good language, but these remain cooperation-based and are not legally enforceable.

Labor rights, in particular the ILO's core standards, are addressed in the chapter on trade and sustainable development. But these provisions are also not enforceable because the chapter is not covered by the general dispute settlement mechanism.

The chapter on trade and sustainable development is results-oriented, and in this sense, it is moving in the right direction. But it does not meet the benchmark for New Zealand's free trade agreement because the Paris Agreement and ILO's core conventions are not covered by just that general dispute settlement chapter. Furthermore, the corresponding chapter in the agreements with New Zealand addressed other important issues that are missing in the agreement with Chile, such as the obligation to refrain from any measure or omission that significantly counteracts the purpose of the Paris Agreement, provisions on subsidies for fossil fuels, and provisions on trade and investments that support sustainable development.

Madam Speaker! If the aforementioned chapters are not sufficiently far-reaching or enforceable, the problem with the chapter on investment protection, including a system for investment courts, is the opposite. It is too far-reaching. The chapter provides a large room for interpretation for arbitrators and risks damaging the legitimate right to regulate labor law that exists for public authorities.

The chapter protects speculative investments, such as futures, options and other derivatives, and short-term investments, such as portfolio investments, which do not involve a significant presence of the investor in Chile. It also allows for branches or shell companies to qualify as investors. Finally, the chapter does not provide sufficient guarantees that investments are forced to comply with commitments under the Paris Agreement and the parties' respective climate neutrality goals.

Madam Speaker! Finally, there are problems regarding the lithium and copper mining and connections, or rather the lack of connections, to ILO Convention 169 on the rights of indigenous peoples and the UN principle of free, prior, and informed consent. The agreement contains only promises and no obligations in this regard.

Madam Speaker! The New Zealand agreement is an exemplar, we believe. Miljöpartiet wants to see all agreements reach this high standard. The agreement with New Zealand contains the application of sanctions in the event of non-compliance with the Paris Agreement and the ILO's core conventions. If the agreement we are debating today lived up to the same standard, I would gladly stand here at the rostrum and praise it. But it does not, which is why I move for approval of the reservation.

The deliberation was hereby concluded.

(Decisions were made under § 13.)

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)