EU and Vietnam agree to launch talks on boosting relations
BRUSSELS - The European Union and Vietnam have agreed to launch talks on building closer ties with a focus on stronger cooperation in education, research and development, the European Commission said Tuesday. Following recent arrests and sentencing of human rights activists in Vietnam, the EU executive body also urged the Vietnamese government "to ensure that the right to freedom of expression and association is respected, and that different political views can to be expressed freely."
A planned new agreement between the 27-member bloc and Vietnam is expected to boost cooperation in areas such as higher education and research and technological development, the commission said.
"We see considerable scope for reinforcing our cooperation," EU external relations commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said after a meeting with Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pham Gia Khiem at the margins of a ministerial meeting with leading Asian nations in Hamburg, Germany.
"Vietnam is a key partner in Southeast Asia and we now have a great opportunity to negotiate an agreement between the EU and Vietnam which fully reflects the breadth of our on-going dialogue," Ferrero-Waldner said in a statement released in Brussels.
The new EU-Vietnam partnership and cooperation agreement would replace a current accord signed in 1995.
The EU is already negotiating such deals with six other members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Talks are under way with Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Philippines and Brunei.
Relations between the EU and Vietnam have been expanding since 2005 when the Asian country presented its first official strategy aimed at forging closer ties with the bloc.
Bilateral trade between the EU and Vietnam has increased by 18 per cent and reached 8.75 billion euros (11.8 billion dollars) in 2006, according to commission data.
The EU executive arm said that Vietnam "is set to benefit further" from a future free trade agreement with the bloc.
EU member states last month gave the go-ahead for free trade deals with key Asian countries, including Vietnam, in a bid to boost trade and political ties with some of the world's fastest-growing markets.
Deutsche Presse Agentur - May 29, 2007.
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