The European Union Ambassador to Vietnam, Julien Guerrier, speaks with Dantri/Dtinews on November 28.
In an interview with Dantri/Dtinews on Tuesday, Ambassador Guerrier said that he arrived in Vietnam at a good time as the EU has one of the deepest and broadest relationships with the country.
“It is the country, actually the region, with which we have the largest number of agreements and Vietnam has set itself ambitious objectives to be a developed country by 2045, and a climate-neutral country by 2050,” he said “We have the same objective to be climate neutral by 2050 in Europe, so we fully support those goals. And what I want to do during my term here is to contribute as the EU as much as possible to Vietnam's sustainable development and path towards the green transition.”
The EU ambassador stressed that he would focus on three goals.
“We have an FTA, Vietnam is our first trading partner in the region,” he said. “We want to further develop that and ensure that the FTA is fully implemented, that there will be more investment and more European trade here. Second, the clean transition and the green route Vietnam is taking. We have the just energy transition partnership between the G7 and Vietnam, which the EU together with the UK is coordinating, and whereby we’ll fund the development of renewable energy here and help Vietnam escape from coal in order to reach its objective of climate neutrality. And third, is the security and stability of the region. We have a strong interest to ensure stability and peace in the region, which is of course the objective of Vietnam, based on the respect of international law, in particular the Convention on the Law of the Seas of the United Nations.”
The EU ambassador shared that he was surprised to see the changes happening in Vietnam since the country joined the WTO.
“It's amazing when you look at the streets, the architecture, the cars, the level of the participation of Vietnam in the value chains worldwide,” he said. “Vietnam has continued to open up and signed free trade agreements with Europe and many other partners. It has become the first trading partner here in ASEAN for the European Union. I come every few years to Vietnam and I discover a new country.”
Vietnam-EU bilateral trade
Bilateral trade turnover between Vietnam and the EU may reach around USD 60-64 billion and the figures may continue to grow according to the ambassador.
“In the past three years, since the free trade agreement between the EU and Vietnam, we've increased already by 50 percent in our bilateral trade and this can further increase,” he said. “We’ll ensure the full implementation of the commitments that we have under the free trade agreements. I think it would be good that we continue to invest more as Europeans in Vietnam because that results also in trade, then from Vietnam to Europe. In an accelerated way, because sometimes the certificates for sanitary and phytosanitary products take a long time. So we have to make that faster and I think there is still potential to further boost bilateral trade.”
Technological innovation
Ambassador Guerrier said he strongly believes that research and innovation is the key to the future of Vietnam-EU relations and Europe is open to the participation of researchers worldwide including Vietnamese researchers.
“That's the key for economic competitiveness, for overcoming any challenges that we are facing when you look at COVID that we had a few years ago,” he noted. How would we have overcome this crisis without the vaccines that were produced? Thanks to our research and innovation, if we want to be climate neutral in Europe and in Vietnam in 2050, we can’t do that with the current technologies.”
He encouraged more Vietnamese young people to study in Europe. Some European research and innovation centres are giving opportunities for Vietnamese students and researchers to participate in their programmes.
Semiconductors
Talking about the semiconductor, Guerrier said that Vietnam could play a huge role because the country has rare earth deposits. So that's already one thing it has already quite a pool of engineers in the sector.
“We would need more, and we would welcome engineers and students coming to Europe, but also going to other countries where you have good studies in the fields and investment here,” he said. “We had a delegation of businesspeople from the Netherlands a few weeks ago who came here to look for possible investment in the field. So, I think this combination can support Vietnam in becoming in the future, the hub to produce semiconductors and that would be of course, to the benefit of Vietnam and its economy but also to the benefit of the resilience of supply chains in semiconductors, also for the sake of the competitiveness of European countries.”
South China Sea issues
Sharing his views of Vietnam's role in the Indo-Pacific maritime strategy, the EU ambassador said that Europe wants to be more present. “This is the continent of the future,” he said. “This is where the next century is being designed. And this is where we also got to take part. This strategy has seven pillars, trade connectivity, ocean governance, digitalisation, green transition, security, etc. And I think in all those pillars, Vietnam has a very big role to play. Already with Vietnam. We have quite a few agreements in the sense we have implemented our Indo-Pacific strategy with Vietnam, even before the Indo-Pacific strategy came into existence. So, we’re pioneering with Vietnam, the implementation of our Indo-Pacific strategy, and I believe you can be a role model for us and for the other countries in the region on how beneficial such strategy can be both for the European Union and for its partner countries in the Indo Pacific.
Talking about the 15th South China Sea Conference, Guerrier said that it was a very good initiative by the Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam to have this yearly event where all concerned partners exchange and share their views in a genuine manner.
“We had partners from all around the ASEAN countries, China, Japan, Korea, and partners from other parts of the world, India, the European Union, North America,” he said. “And that's enabled us to pass the message that the East Sea is a concern for the whole world. As I was saying, for our continent as far away as Europe 40 percent of our trade goes through the South China Sea or the East Sea. So, it is very important for us that stability is ensured in the region.”
Guerrier stressed that the EU shares with Vietnam a very strong commonality of views. In terms of the need to respect international laws, in particular the UN Convention on the Law of the Seas, and to work together on a code of conduct that the ASEAN countries are working on to ensure that there is trust-building measures, that confidence will progressively defuse the tensions in the East Sea and ensure a long-term stability for the region. He hoped that the Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam would continue the event and the EU was ready to support AV with their own programmes and financial support through the project that they call enhancing security in and with Asia.
He said the EU needs to support Vietnam and other ASEAN countries and countries of the region to build on their code of conduct that they are working on. And they can contribute also by sending military ships to the region to patrol and ensure that the region is safe.
Education cooperation
Ambassador Guerrier said he hadn’t had much time to meet so many young people, but his impression was quite strong in the sense that the level of education in Vietnam was extremely high.
“I want to commend the Vietnamese government for having achieved that, because this is for me the key to the future development of the country,” he said. “On some measures, Vietnam fares even better than Europe. And we want to contribute as Europeans by attracting your Vietnamese students to our best universities to contribute to that good level of education that you have here. And also, by investing in vocational training. Our companies are quite strong in training and can invest here in Vietnam.”
He suggested two main EU-funded programmes for young students or researchers. And there are a lot of fellowships or scholarships that enable students to come to various member states. They have recently issued a booklet with a list of funding opportunities for students who want to go to Europe.
He also mentioned the role of the alumni network in Europe.
“I strongly believe that through these exchanges of Vietnamese coming to Europe, Europeans coming to Vietnam, we can build the good relations of the future,” he said. “So, I hope those alumni networks will be a pool of talents that will be able to work for European companies here for Vietnamese companies abroad and in general, to support the development of Vietnam towards sustainable growth.”
Getting young people to solve environmental problems
When asked about some initiatives he suggested Vietnamese young people get more involved in solving global environmental problems, the ambassador shared that the EU have promotion exercises for their universities and their programmes in order to ensure that students have the opportunity to study also in these fields in Europe, where they are hoping to see progress, and they will foster co-operation between the two sides and the possibility to have green and sustainable investment.
“One of the most well-known recent investments from Europe is the Lego factory in Vietnam, which will be the first CO2-neutral factory in Vietnam,” he said.
The EU ambassador also shared that he would start a blog at the beginning of December, and he was very much looking forward to interacting more with people.
