The European Union announced a comprehensive investment agreement in principle with China on Dec. 30, but the agreement has set off a huge wave of opposition before it was officially signed because of China’s human rights abuses and lack of substantive commitments to ratify international conventions against forced labor. The head of the French Green Party said that Paris has abandoned the honor of France. The head of the Green Party sent a letter to Macron saying that Europe should suspend trade talks with China as long as China commits violence against the Uighurs. When asked by reporters, a head of the Chinese Ministry of Commerce said: China’s relevant laws clearly prohibit forced labor.
EU Executive Committee President Ursula von der Leyen, European Council President Charles Michel, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron held a video conference with Chinese President Xi Jinping on 30 June. The European side announced the completion of the negotiations in principle after the meeting. But this is only the first step, Europe and China still need time to determine the final content of the agreement, and must be sent to the European Parliament for a vote.
The specific content of the agreement is yet to be announced, but the EU unnamed officials revealed on the 29th, China’s commitment to market opening, fair competition and sustainable development 3 points, the future will be open to European business investment in aircraft manufacturing, cloud services, electric vehicles, finance and medical industries, will be the “most ambitious” “” agreement signed between China and a third country.
But the agreement has been met with huge opposition in the European Parliament, and even some EU member states have expressed doubts at one point.
The European Parliament recently passed a resolution demanding that the agreement with China should have provisions that would fully comply with international conventions prohibiting forced labor. And French Foreign Trade Minister Franck Riester said on Dec. 23 that Paris would not support the agreement negotiated by the EU if Beijing did not make progress on the issue of forced labor for Uighurs in Xinjiang.
But EU officials released a message on Dec. 29 that China will make “sustained and lasting” efforts to ratify the International Labor Organization’s (ILO) fundamental convention on forced labor, as promised in the agreement. However, the EU also acknowledged that China has not made further commitments on matters such as unionization.
The European Council briefly reiterated after the Euro-China video conference on the 30th that China had made a commitment to ratify the ILO’s fundamental conventions on forced labor.
The European Union rushed to sign the agreement before getting more commitments from China for further improvements, which will not only make it difficult to put more pressure on China in the future, but also leave an image of European human rights values compromised to business.
French MEP Glucksmann (Raphaël Glucksmann) said in an article on the 29th that he would oppose the agreement if China gave empty promises, and German Green MEP Reinhard Bütikofer, vice chairman of the European Parliament’s China Relations Group, also sent an article demanding that the EU must insist on a clear timetable for China to determine the ratification of the ILO Convention.
Bernd Lange, Chairman of the European Parliament’s Committee on International Trade, pointed out in an article on the 30th that the discussion on the issue of forced labor is not over, and that this is only the beginning, which seems to indicate that the European Parliament will not let go lightly.
MEP Yannick JADOT strongly opposes this cynical approach of the EU. He said that Paris has abandoned the honor of France; we will continue to fight in the European Parliament to reclaim the true values of society.
According to a report by the Center for Global Policy, a Washington-based think tank, hundreds of thousands of ethnic minority workers are forced to pick cotton by hand in China’s northwestern Xinjiang region under the Chinese government’s forced labor program.
There are calls for Beijing to commit to ratifying the International Labor Organization’s core treaty on labor benchmarks to prohibit forced labor and allow laborers to unionize.
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