VietNamNet Bridge – The 20-year relations between Vietnam and the European Union were reviewed at an international workshop in Hanoi on November 29.

“Vietnam-EU relations have never been frozen,” commented Phan Thuy Thanh, former Vietnamese Ambassador to Belgium.

She said the two sides are fully aware of the goodwill towards each other and their roles in maintaining their relations. The EU is now Vietnam’s most important partnerand Vietnam is the EU’s priority partner in Asia.

Former Deputy Prime Minister Vu Khoan said that since the two sides established diplomatic relations in 1990, especially since signing the Cooperation Framework Agreement, their bilateral relations have developed very quickly, from politics to trade, investment, development cooperation, culture, education, science, health and other forms of cooperation to cope with global challenges.

EU Ambassador to Vietnam Sean Doyle also said that the relations between the two sides have changed from “projects” to “programs”, from “policy assistance” to “economic assistance”. “The relations between the EU and Vietnam will further develop. The EU is not an old continent. We don’t give up friendship cooperation with Vietnam,” he said.

The EU has become one of Vietnam’s leading economic partners. The two-way trade turnover grows from 15 to 20 percent annually, reaching the record level of $15.2 billion in 2009.

By the end of 2009, 21 out of 27 members and big groups of the EU invested in Vietnam with a total  capital of around $13.3 billion.

The EU is committed to provide Vietnam with $10 billion of ODA in 1996-2009 and $1 billion in 2010. The EU is the second ODA provider to Vietnam. It is also the largest non-refundable aid provider to Vietnam in many years.

ODA is a “bright” piece in the panorama of 20-year relations between Vietnam and the EU. Ho Quang Minh, chief of the Ministry of Planning and Investment’s Foreign Economic Relations Department, said that as Vietnam becomes a middle-income country, the EU’s ODA is very important.

To mark the 20^th anniversary of Vietnam-EU relations, the two sides initiated the framework agreement on partnership and cooperation (PCA) to raise the bilateral relations to “strategic partnership”. The new agreement will replace the one signed in 1995.

Former Minister of Foreign Affairs Nguyen Dy Nien talked to representatives of the EU at the workshop about the lateness in granting the EU’s market-economy status for Vietnam.

The Belgium Ambassador to Vietnam Hubert Cooreman said the grant of the market economy status to Vietnam requires political and technical decisions. He confirmed the political readiness but technical decisions are often very complicated.

Though the EU has recognized that Vietnam meets one fifth of its standards to become a market economy, Cooreman believed that the two sides have passed half of the way and they “can’t come back” in the efforts to discuss this issue.

James Moran, chief of the Asian Department of the European Commission, said that the signing of a Free Trade Agreement will be the solution.

Xuan Linh