The French Head of State, Emmanuel Macron, and the President of the People’s Republic of China, Xi Jinping, spoke by telephone on Thursday 25 February. It was an opportunity for the two Heads of State to welcome the conclusion of the negotiations on the investment agreement between China and the EU (see EUROPE 12628/7).
However, the French President stressed the need to “make progress as soon as possible on the commitments made by China with regard to the ratification of the fundamental conventions of the International Labour Organization”, according to the communiqué from the Élysée.
China has signed four of the eight conventions and has committed itself in the investment agreement to “continue efforts towards ratification” of the four texts in question. They concern the right to organise (87, 98) and forced labour (29, 105).
While the French president welcomed the agreement and called for its ratification, the positions within his own political party are divergent. On 13 January, French MEP Bernard Guetta of the Renew Europe group signed an op-ed in the French daily Libération to express his opposition to the agreement. Other French MEPs from his group in the European Parliament are very sceptical at the moment. A few days before the conclusion of the negotiations, France announced that it would not support the agreement until China had ratified the conventions in question.
On 25 February, members of civil society expressed their concerns about the agreement at a hearing in the European Parliament’s Subcommittee on Human Rights. Sharon Hom, Executive Director of Human Rights in China, and Judith Kirton-Darling, Deputy Secretary General of the IndustriAll European Trade Union, denounced the weaknesses of the agreement in terms of human rights protection and the Rule of law.
For Mrs Kirton-Darling, the agreement is a “political mistake”, “especially at a time when there are more and more systematic human rights violations in China”. “The EU should be a pioneer in developing a prudent strategy that ensures that fundamental rights are respected”, she explained. She therefore called on MEPs not to adopt the agreement until China ratifies the International Labour Organization conventions and commits itself to respecting them within a binding timetable. In the meantime, she said, economic sanctions should be a last resort.
According to Sharon Hom, all the EU institutions must ensure a number of preconditions for the ratification of the agreement, believing that an agreement without a clause relating to respect for human rights “is a blank cheque for an authoritarian regime”. She recommended a stronger EU commitment “which could be based on the pragmatism and principles of the EU/China strategy and on a partnership agenda coupled with constructive management of points of divergence”.
The European Commission’s chief negotiator on the investment agreement, Maria Martin Prat, defended the agreement, explaining that it is better to have an instrument for discussing these issues with China than to have nothing. In her view, this agreement could have the same effect as the one negotiated with South Korea, which has committed itself to adopting several ILO Conventions (see other news).
She also recalled that the EU is China’s only partner to include sustainable development in an agreement with it.
“We have a strong enforcement mechanism, civil society will participate in the transparency effort”, said Mrs Martin Prat as reassurance. However, she acknowledged that the agreement will not solve everything and that other tools may have to be used in the event of an emergency. (Original version in French by Léa Marchal and Camille-Cerise Gessant)