Between July 15th and 19th 2019, the 22nd round of negotiations on the EU-China bilateral investment treaty (EU-China BIT) was held in Brussels. This was the latest development in the negotiations. The EU-China BIT negotiations as a crucial part of EU-China relations have lasted nearly six years since 2013. During the process of negotiation, sustainable development has become a priority for both parties.
Between July 15th and 19th 2019, the 22nd round of negotiations on the EU-China bilateral investment treaty (EU-China BIT) was held in Brussels. This was the latest development in the negotiations. The EU-China BIT negotiations as a crucial part of EU-China relations have lasted nearly six years since 2013. During the process of negotiation, sustainable development has become a priority for both parties. When we look back at the progress of the past rounds of negotiations, it can be found that sustainable development issues have been mentioned for several times in the agendas of the 19th, 20th, 21st and other previous rounds. It was repeated in the report of the last round of negotiations that ‘the Chief Negotiators discussed the environmental and labour policy issues related to investment and outlined the paths for further technical work’. China and the EU have attached great importance to sustainable development issues in the context that sustainable development has become a popular topic nowadays. Both sides believe that sustainable investment plays a key role in their future cooperation.
We should recognize that the era of sustainable development has arrived. Although several divergences on the definition of ‘sustainable development’ still exist among scholars, it has become an international consensus that the basic idea of sustainable development should be the coordinated development of the society, economy and environment. Recently, more and more BITs are including sustainable development clauses, such as environmental standards, labour protection, human rights clause etc. Therefore, encouraging sustainable investment is a sensible way for the EU and China to achieve their long-term cooperation. It is inevitable to give sufficient attention to sustainable development issues in the upcoming EU-China BIT. In future rounds of negotiations, it is foreseeable that the sustainable development provisions will continue to be on the core agenda. In addition, the United Nations (UN) proposed 17 clear sustainable development goals with 169 specific targets by initiating the 2030 Agenda in 2015. The EU and China actively responded to the 2030 Agenda by taking concrete actions. Both parties have accumulated some experiences of implementing sustainable development. This laid a foundation for the EU and China to include sustainable development provisions in their BIT.
However, the negotiation process of the EU-China BIT was not as efficient as expected. Both parties are facing difficulties for reaching a consensus on the specific provisions, including sustainable development provisions. It is necessary for the EU to make an internal consensus on the provisions at first. Disagreements between the EU Member States can lead to delay of the negotiations. Moreover, the EU and China have their own priorities to implement sustainable development due to their different domestic conditions. The EU particularly emphasizes ‘gender equality, sustainable energy and climate action…’ when trying to achieve sustainable development. While China gives priorities to reducing poverty, accelerating the optimization of energy structure, mitigating climate change and so on.
The EU now is getting its Member States to come together as a whole to establish international investment partnership with another state. China has already concluded some BITs with several EU Member States. But most of these BITs are not updated and do not contain sustainable development provisions. Up to now we do not know the contents of the proposals put forward by the two sides. But at least, so far environmental and labour issues are being considered from the reports of the negotiations. In the future, both the EU and China need to be patient with each other. The two sides should bear in mind that the basic principles of the EU-China BIT should be: encouraging investment, enhancing trust and balancing the interests of the host country and investors. The effective way to improve the efficiency of the negotiations for both parties is to consider each other’s needs and conditions. The EU-China BIT will be a new chapter of EU-China relations, and we look forward to its arrival.