The European Union and Vietnam agreed to expand trade and strategic cooperation, putting a €76 billion goods relationship alongside renewed scrutiny of Hanoi’s labor and human-rights record.
Vietnamese President Tô Lâm met European Council President António Costa and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in Brussels on Oct. 22. Their joint statement called for full implementation of the existing free-trade agreement and swift ratification of a separate investment protection pact, which has not entered into force because it awaits approval by all EU member states.
The leaders also named critical raw materials, technology, infrastructure and regional security as areas for closer cooperation. The statement cited work through the EU’s Global Gateway investment initiative and the Just Energy Transition Partnership, and looked ahead to an EU-ASEAN commemorative summit in 2027.
European Commission data show that goods trade between the EU and Vietnam reached €76 billion in 2025, leaving the EU with a €51.7 billion deficit. Services trade totaled €9 billion in 2024, when the EU recorded a €1.6 billion surplus.
Thirteen rights organizations urged EU leaders in an Oct. 16 letter to raise human-rights concerns during Tô Lâm’s visit. Human Rights Watch said at least 160 people were imprisoned as political prisoners in Vietnam. The group’s letter also said courts sentenced at least 28 activists and police arrested at least 39 other people during the first nine months of 2026.
“The Vietnamese government has broken its pledges of reform and continues to crack down on basic freedoms,” said Patricia Gossman, Human Rights Watch’s senior associate Asia director, in an Oct. 19 statement.
The EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement has been in force since Aug. 1, 2020, and includes labor and environmental provisions. The European Commission says Vietnam committed to ratify fundamental International Labour Organization (ILO) conventions it had not yet ratified. The ILO’s Vietnam record does not list Convention No. 87, which covers freedom of association and the right to organize. Human Rights Watch says Vietnam pledged to ratify it by the end of 2023 and has not done so.
The joint statement reaffirmed human-rights dialogue but set out no public deadline or specific remedy for rights violations. Deutsche Welle reported that Hai Thiem Bui, a researcher at Stockholm University’s Stockholm Center for Global Asia, said larger foreign-invested manufacturers and established exporters were better placed than smaller domestic firms to benefit from tariff cuts.
