The Commission decides to refer the UNITED KINGDOM to the Court of Justice of the European Union for failure to terminate its Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs) with six EU Member States

European Commission - Press release The Commission decides to refer the UNITED KINGDOM to the Court of Justice of the European Union for failure to terminate its Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs) with six EU Member States Brussels, 16 December 2024 Today, the European Commission decided to refer the United Kingdom to the Court of Justice of the European Union for failing to terminate the Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs) that it still has in force with Bulgaria, Czechia, Croatia, Lithuania, Poland and Slovenia. The BITs are agreements between two countries designed to protect and promote foreign investment by providing guarantees such as fair treatment or protection against expropriation. It has been the Commission's long-standing position that BITs between EU Member States overlap and conflict with EU law. On 6 March 2018, the Court of Justice of the EU confirmed that position in case C-284/16 Achmea. The court ruled that investor-to-State arbitration under bilateral investment treaties between EU Member States is incompatible with EU law, as it calls into question the principle of mutual trust between Member States. All Member States, including the United Kingdom, committed – in their Declarations of 15 and 16 January 2019 – to terminate the BITs concluded between them in a coordinated manner by means of a plurilateral treaty, unless bilateral terminations were considered mutually more expedient. Although the plurilateral treaty agreed between Member States...