After a 12.5-hour night flight, Robert Habeck had just got off the Air Force Airbus in Singapore, somewhat tired, but the Federal Minister of Economics was still fit enough for a brief moment of high spirits. The most recent decisions by the traffic light coalition to withdraw from the much-criticized international energy charter and to complete the planned trade agreements with Canada, Mexico and Chile are “a milestone in trade policy,” enthused the Green politician on the sidelines of his trip to the Asia-Pacific Conference of German Business .
In other words, when it comes to realigning its foreign trade policy, the federal government is not content simply with forbidding Chinese companies from taking over German competitors. At the same time, it sets the pace in opening up new markets and business relationships.
A basic discussion is in progress
In fact, in the past few weeks and months, Germany has set more course in trade policy than in the previous ten years. The triggers included attempts by Chinese companies to take over shares in the Port of Hamburg and in IT companies Elmos in Dortmund and Bavaria. While the federal cabinet finally approved the deal in Hamburg after a long internal dispute, the other two sales were banned.
At the same time, a fundamental discussion was started on how to protect the country’s critical infrastructure, prevent the outflow of technological know-how and reform the promotion of foreign trade. In addition, the government wants to create incentives for German companies to diversify their raw material and export markets instead of focusing primarily on China.
“In order to strengthen trade relations, we want to quickly enter into partnerships with Chile and Mexico that enable free and fair trade,” Habeck said. In addition, the trade agreement with Canada (Ceta) will be ratified and the partnership with the USA will be deepened. “Especially in times of crisis, cooperation is the answer, not retreat,” he emphasized. Federal Minister of Justice Marco Buschmann (FDP) also particularly welcomed the CETA agreement. “Especially when we need to curb trade with autocracies, we should trade even more with the world’s democracies,” he wrote on Twitter.
At the same time, the coalition drew the necessary conclusions from the fact that the EU had not succeeded in reforming the so-called Energy Charter in the past few months. The international agreement that came into force in 1998 is actually intended to protect investments in energy projects. However, it has long been criticized by environmental protection organizations because it allows companies that have invested in coal, for example, to sue states for a possible phase-out of coal-fired power generation. France and the Netherlands also want to turn their backs on the Energy Charter. In Singapore, Habeck spoke of a “clear signal that we want to strengthen trade and partnerships, based on fairness and sustainability”. The federal government is also consistently aligning its trade policy with climate protection.
The fact that the coalition was now able to pass the package is apparently mainly due to concessions made by the Greens and the FDP. The Greens gave up their resistance to the Ceta ratification, which is now to be initiated in the Bundestag at the end of November, the Liberals moved on the Energy Charter.