Formation of the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreements Domestic Advisory Group: What it means for the civil society in Vietnam?

The Domestic Advisory Groups of the EU and Vietnam under the EVFTA (EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement) were officially established and met for the first time on November 12th, 2021 - nearly half a year later than originally planned. The formation of the Vietnam Domestic Advisory Group (DAG) was historic, as it is the first time non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in Vietnam are formally engaged in the review/monitoring process of a trade agreement. The research analysed the impacts of the DAG formation on the Vietnamese civil society and its relations with the government from a contextualised perspective. The conceptual framework is based on the combination of the imperfect reproduction model, which theorises the negotiation between rule-makers and rule-takers and the negotiating approach to the state-society relations in Vietnam, attempting to capture the nuances in the relationship between the authoritarian state and the civil society. On the one hand, the partystate imposed a tough legal framework that generally weakens and marginalises civil society from formal political processes; on the other hand, the state has shown certain concessions to civil society campaigns and contestations. The research showed that with the continuous pressure from the EU Parliament, the negative impacts of Covid-19 pandemic on Vietnam's economy, the prolonged internal political debate eventually led to the concession, though minimal, to include civil society organisations in the DAG. Upon consideration of the statesociety relations in Vietnam, this can be regarded as a small but important progress.