The 7th meeting of the EU Domestic Advisory Group (DAG) under the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (FTA), and the first meeting of the new 2023-25 term, took place on 18 September 2023.
The Vietnam DAG members, invited to Brussels by the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES), met the EU DAG members on 28 March 2023. The overarching objective of the visit was capacity building. It was an occasion for the members to exchange views on topical issues and on the work of the respective DAGs since the joint meetings in October 2022.
There was also a workshop on the EU's Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence (CSDD) with presentations of the institutional view.
This 6th meeting of the EU DAG for Vietnam will be the occasion for the members who participated at the joint meetings in Hanoi on 18-20 October to report back to the EU DAG, and for the EU DAG to reflect on how to follow-up on those meetings.
The European Commission's DG TRADE will report from the 2nd meeting of the Committee on Trade and Sustainable Development and discuss the outcome of the Joint Forum with the EU DAG.
The EU DAG will also discuss with the expert how to take the desk study on supply chains further.
The 2nd meeting of the EU and the Vietnam Domestic Advisory Groups (DAGs), so called DAG-to-DAG meeting established under the Trade and Sustainable Development (TSD) chapter of the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement, took place on 18 October 2022. This was the first time the members of the respective DAGs met in person, and they exchanged views on the work of the DAGs since the last online meeting in 2021 and discussed the ratification of ILO conventions and global supply chains in the context of due diligence. You may find here the Joint statement. There was also a workshop on the energy transition and the preparations for COP-27.
The EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (FTA) envisages that DAG members of each Party meet together at a Civil Society Forum to conduct a dialogue encompassing sustainable development aspects of trade relations between the Parties.
This preparatory meeting took place ahead of the joint meetings with the Vietnamese counterparts scheduled for the second week of November. It also gave the EU DAG the opportunity to receive an update from DG Trade on the implementation of the FTA as well as a timely update on TSD-related issues and implementation.
This meeting was an excellent opportunity for a timely update by DG Trade on the implementation of the Trade and Sustainable Development Chapter under the FTA, as well as for a constructive exchange with the Director of the ILO office in Hanoi on the labour situation in Vietnam and the state of play of the roadmap.
Additionally, Ambassador Vu Anh Quang, from the Vietnamese Mission to the EU, participated in an exchange with the EU Domestic Advisory Group (EU DAG) members to share his views on ongoing topics within the context of the EU Vietnam relations.
The members of the EU DAG, which is composed of representatives of employers' organisations, trade unions and various interest groups, also further discussed its work programme and prepared the upcoming joint meetings with its Vietnamese civil society counterparts.
On 28 May, nevertheless, after this EU DAG meeting and following the postponement of the joint EU-Vietnam meetings due to the fact that the Vietnam DAG had not been established yet, the members of the EU DAG issued a statement on the late cancellation of the first Trade and Sustainable Development Committee and the first Joint forum between European and Vietnamese civil society, which had been planned to take place in the first week of June 2021.
This was the first meeting of the EU Domestic Advisory Group (DAG), composed of representatives of employers' organisations, trade unions and various interest groups. At the meeting, the EU DAG received information from the European External Action Service (EEAS) on the EU relations with Vietnam and exchange with representatives of the European Commission's DG TRADE and the European Parliament on the implementation of the Trade and Sustainable Development chapter of the FTA. The EU DAG had also a first discussion on its work programme.
