The Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI) between the EU and China is above all a political victory for China, according to a study, published on Monday 19 April, by the Polish Institute of International Affairs (PISM) in collaboration with the Polish Economic Institute. The report, which measures the impact of the agreement on the EU, was commissioned by Reinhard Bütikofer (Greens/EFA, Germany).
The authors of the study believe that the timing and the global political context of the conclusion at the end of 2020 were wrong on all counts.
“The biggest blow of the conclusion was to transatlantic relations. It gives the signal the EU is undermining the common position on China”, said Damian Wnukowski, head of the PISM’s Asia Pacific programme and co-author of the study.
On the other hand, the authors of the study consider that the provisions of the agreement are not effective enough to be applied and to benefit European companies. In their view, it is not to be expected that China will comply with the requirements of the agreement or the judgements of the agreement’s arbitration panel.
They therefore recommend that the EU should first equip itself with the tools to implement trade rules and thus wait for the adoption of the future tools against coercive measures, against foreign subsidies, for corporate due diligence, and finally, of the International Procurement Instrument.
They also criticise the lack of a binding arbitration system for sustainability provisions in the study. They therefore recommend that the EU should first wait for China to ratify the core International Labour Organization (ILO) conventions before ratifying the agreement.
Present at the presentation of the study on 19 April, MEP Iuliu Winkler (EPP, Romania), who is the rapporteur on the agreement, tried to support the agreement in the face of his very pessimistic colleagues Reinhard Bütikofer and Anna Fotyga (ECR, Poland). “The EU needs a rules-based engagement with China. If not CAI, then what else?”, he questioned. He tried to point out the positive points of the agreement, while recalling that other less clear-cut studies on the CAI had also been published. “Different viewpoints can bring different conclusions”, he stressed.
See the study: https://bit.ly/32vn2W6 (Original version in French by Léa Marchal)