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Contributions from
the Column
Facts and trends
“It’s still a long way to peace in Sudan”
Journalists
No new approval procedures for export credit guarantees in Germany
Drugs and development: harm reduction strategies
Smaller volume of German arms exports
Kenya, Angola: billions missing
Afghan economy growing – so is the drug trade
Health services
2/2004
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[ New OECD environmental guidelines ]
No new approval procedures for
export credit guarantees in Germany
New OECD environmental guidelines came into force for export credit guarantees at the beginning of the year. Like all other OECD members, Germany had approved the new rules in mid-December. The interministerial committee that authorises German export credit guarantees – comprising officials from the Federal Ministry for Economic and Labour Affairs (BMWA), Finance Ministry, Foreign Office and Development Ministry – has already adopted them as a basis for its decisions.
According to the BMWA, however, the new guidelines make little difference to the way guarantees are granted at present because the formalised verification procedure which the new rules require was introduced in Germany back in 2001. What is new is that official export credit guarantee policy is required to be more in line with the environmental standards of the World Bank and the regional development banks than it was under the old OECD rules. Also, the results of environmental impact studies need to be published before the committee reaches a decision.
Environmental groups like Robin Wood voiced disappointment at the fact that the OECD members had failed to agree on a set of minimum social and ecological standards of their own. Environmentalists see some big gaps in the standards defined by the international banks, especially by the regional development banks. They welcome as progress, however, the requirement that environmentally relevant information should be published before decisions on export projects are taken. In the past, they say, the economics ministry prevented such transparency, citing the need to protect trade or business secrets. Now, that is possible only in exceptional cases.
The German business sector is not against the new guidelines but it rejects any idea of Germany going it alone in reforming the rules for export credit guarantees. This is something that environmentalist and development groups have been demanding for years. When the Social Democrats and Greens came to power in 1998 they announced such a reform in their coalition agreement. In contrast, the director-general of the Federation of German Industries (BDI), Ludolf von Wartenberg, said that export credit guarantees are supposed to promote exports, not impede or even prevent them. (uke)
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