Bavaria's
state bank is set to invest about $120 million in the Dakota Access Pipeline,
which threatens a Native American reservation and drinking water. Other banks
have already sold their stake.
Deutsche Welle, 6 February 2017
There
aren't many members of the Sioux tribe living in Bavaria but, thanks to the
tentacles of international finance, the protests against the Dakota Access
Pipeline (DAPL) being built near the US's Standing Rock Indian Reservation have
reached the state capital, Munich.
Last week,
protesters from an alliance of NGOs arrived on the doorsteps of the BayernLB
bank to deliver more than 700,000 signatures collected via worldwide petitions
against the investments of 17 financial institutions into DAPL. These included
more than 220,000 signatures specifically aimed at BayernLB's contribution that
had been collected in a few days. By Monday 6, the online petition had reached
close to 300,000 signatures.
Despite an
invitation from the environmental campaigners Urgewald, Bavaria's state bank
declined to send any representatives outside the building to receive the
petition. "But we were allowed to go in with a delegation of three people,
and we gave the petition to the press spokesman," said Regine Richter,
banking specialist at Urgewald.
The bank
itself is unwilling to give interviews on the subject and in response to DW's
request would only send the public statement it issued in December, which made
many conciliatory noises. "BayernLB is following the running discussions
about the route of the pipeline very carefully and, as part of the consortium
financing the pipeline, supports an amicable result of the discussions between
the parties," it read.
Wait and
see
BayernLB
said it was waiting on a report from the US law firm Foley Hoag that was
commissioned in December to look into how the local indigenous people had been
consulted for the project. That report is due out later this month, but it may
come too late. In January, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order
decreeing that the environmental review for the project be fast-tracked.
"Nobody
is really sure that means, but we are concerned that DAPL could get the green
light any day now," Nick Pelosi, corporate engagement director for the
campaign group First Peoples Worldwide, told DW. "It's such an urgent
matter at this point that we really don't have time."
Not only
that: The study is being conducted behind closed doors and may be no more than
a desktop assessment. "From what we understand, it is a study on tribal
consultation, which is the crux of this issue - that the tribe was not
consulted properly about this pipeline," Pelosi said. "But nobody's
reached out to the tribe, so it's essentially a study on consultation without
any consultation."
The 17
banks insist that the loans for DAPL - amounting to $2.5 billion (2.3 billion
euros) - are now legally committed. "But some have shown concern and that
they are willing to exert the limited influence that they have," Pelosi
said.
"I
definitely think they're feeling the pressure," he said. "But what
the tribe is asking is not necessarily for the banks to pull out, but to use
their influence as project lenders to pressure the company into rerouting to
avoid their treaty territory."
The banks
say that influence appears to be very limited indeed: They argue that they
can't impose new conditions on the loans and that it isn't their role to
determine the route. "Which is true - it's the US government's
responsibility - but we're asking them to support the reroute, not dictate
it," Pelosi said.
 |
| Dozens of protesters have been arrested at the Standing Rock reservation |
Passive
bank
Compared
with other banks, BayernLB has been particularly recalcitrant. "BayernLB
was one of the few that outright rejected our request for dialogue," said
Pelosi.
"BayernLB
is being much too passive," Richter said. "Banks like the Dutch ING
and the Norwegian DNB are at least expressing public criticism of the pipeline
consortium's behavior or are selling stakes in the companies involved."
Meanwhile
in Germany, BayernLB's involvement in the project (a $120 million contribution
to DAPL) has raised some political hackles - firstly because it is partly owned
by the state, and secondly because it received a colossal taxpayer-funded 10
billion-euro ($9.3 billion) bailout during Europe's financial crisis in 2008.
"BayernLB
should not be allowed to support the dirty business of climate denier Donald
Trump," said Anton Hofreiter, the Greens' parliamentary leader and a
native of Bavaria. "This project destroys the environment, is a risk for
the drinking water from the Missouri River and, at the same time, desecrates
the Native Americans' cultural heritage."
Hofreiter,
along with other German politicians, is sure that BayernLB's commitment to the
project could be reversed by Bavaria's state government. "I'm sure it's
possible," Frank Schwabe, Bundestag member for the Social Democrats, told
DW. "The bank has oversight committees, and there is political influence
on that, so it would be good if the politicians in Bavaria would take a clear
position on it. We're discussing the issue of company and bank responsibility
more and more, and I think that a state bank in particular needs to stick to
that."
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