The EU as a partner of ILO in trade negotiations. Explaining labour reform in Vietnam

ABSTRACT

Can EU comprehensive trade agreements effectively promote international labour standards, despite their soft enforcement rules? And if so, under what conditions? This paper addresses these questions by focusing on a hard case study, namely Vietnam’s ratification in 2019 of the ILO Convention 98 on the right to organize and collective bargaining. Such a ratification is an epochal change for a mono-party regime lacking recognition of independent trade unions. This paper shows that the EU has emerged as a key partner of ILO in promoting international law in Vietnam and explains such a result from a political economy perspective. This case study provides insights into the extent to which a trade partner is dependent upon international trade increases the leverage of the EU, and especially the European Parliament, and ultimately affects the ability of the EU to emerge as a normative power through trade.

KEYWORDS:

• European union
• normative power
• trade
• international labour organization

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Voice of Vietnam 2018, PM: Vietnam wants EVFTA to be signed soon, 26 July

Voice of Vietnam 2019a, Vietnam: EU regarded as Vietnam’s important partner, 6 August.

Voice of Vietnam 2019b, Vietnam: Vietnam honors its FTA commitments by joining ILO Convention 98. 4 June.

Vu-Thanh, T. A. (2017). Does WTO accession help domestic reform? The political economy of SOE reform backsliding in Vietnam. World Trade Review, 16(1), 85-109.

Notes

1. For an analysis of the negotiation of the EUVFTA and of the role of the Commission in voicing the preferences of European importers and exporters for soft enforcement rules in the sustainability chapter, see Poletti and Sicurelli (2018).