David Hutt ,  Contributor

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• The EU is today Vietnam’s second-largest trading partner, after China, and second-biggest export market, after the United States.
• The Vietnam government, perhaps, knows that while human rights might be a “red line” for some EU officials, the promise of greater profits for European firms could be enough to strong-arm others into accepting the EVFTA.

A proposed free trade agreement between Vietnam and the European Union could be hanging in the balance after the German foreign ministry accused Vietnam’s secret service of kidnapping a Vietnamese businessman from the streets of Berlin late last month. Trinh Xuan Thanh, who is wanted by Vietnamese authorities for alleged financial crimes, was abducted in the heart of the German capital on July 23, the German government says, but Hanoi claims he voluntarily returned to Vietnam and turned himself in to the police. He later appeared on Vietnamese state-television to deliver a “confession,” which his lawyer called “forced.”

War of Words

Earlier this month, Germany’s foreign ministry said there are “no longer any serious doubts” that Vietnam’s secret service and embassy were involved in the abduction, and described it as an “unprecedented and blatant violation of German law and international law.” It also called on Hanoi to return Thanh to Germany, where he was applying for asylum. The German foreign minister later described the event as akin to “thriller films about the Cold War.”
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