European Union

Three Vietnamese policy documents, issued between 2019 and 2024, changed how I understood the new EU-Vietnam partnership. Resolution 52-NQ/TW, issued by the Politburo in 2019, set a target for the digital economy to reach approximately 30 percent of GDP by 2030. In 2021, the National Green Growth Strategy, approved by Prime Ministerial Decision 1658/QĐ-TTg, set the same target at 30 percent. Resolution 57-NQ/TW, issued by the Politburo in 2024, set it again: at least 30 percent. All three documents predate the January 2026 upgrade, showing that Vietnam’s digital priorities were established well before the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership — not once, but three times over.

I brought this case to the UACES Annual Conference in Prague this year, presenting it on a panel about reimagining the EU as a global development actor. The partnership itself was still very new. Vietnam and the EU marked 35 years of diplomatic relations in 2025, and on 29 January 2026 that relationship was formally upgraded to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership through a Joint Statement adopted in Hanoi, making Vietnam the EU’s first Comprehensive Strategic Partner in ASEAN. Within that broader context, my research poses a more focused question: why science and technology cooperation was prioritised in the CSP, and how the EU’s Global Gateway framework actually supports it in practice. The paper does not attempt to assess results because of how recently the partnership was established. It stays with the policy justification, and with what the documents themselves reveal about where this priority came from.

Reading these documents changed how I approached the CSP. I had initially focused on what the EU was offering Vietnam. But the Vietnamese documents made me ask a different question: how does this partnership fit priorities Vietnam had already set for itself?

Two theoretical lenses helped me make sense of that question. Normative Power Europe explains part of the EU’s side: the Joint Statement pursues cooperation through funding and institutional dialogue, the two channels that echo what Manners calls transference and procedural diffusion. Some of the language also invites comparison with the Brussels Effect, which Bradford describes as unilateral and market-driven. The Joint Statement speaks of promoting “convergence of international standards in the digital domain.” Yet I read this as negotiated, shared cooperation rather than one-sided regulatory export, although the wording alone cannot tell us how much influence each side will have over those standards. The document places this language under digital cooperation, alongside 5G and semiconductor supply chains. Research cooperation, including Horizon Europe, appears elsewhere. I noticed that distinction while mapping the Joint Statement: the issues are all technological, but they do not raise the same kinds of questions for the two sides. A research exchange and a telecoms contract involve different interests and negotiations. That may help explain why cooperation in research was easier to present as low-friction common ground, even while the more difficult digital questions remained.

Financing is where the picture becomes less clear. Global Gateway has put significant money behind energy and transport projects in Vietnam, and some of those commitments came before the CSP. Science and technology look different. The two sides signed a Letter of Intent in May 2026, and Vietnamese researchers were already taking part in Horizon Europe, but I could not find a separate Global Gateway funding package for this area. One possible reason is timing. Energy cooperation had the Just Energy Transition Partnership, agreed in 2022 with the EU, the G7 and other partners, in place well before the CSP, whereas the newer science and technology commitments are still being worked out. I need to look more closely at how these funding decisions were made before drawing a firmer conclusion.

The conversation did not end when the panel did. The session chair followed up with a set of questions that I am genuinely grateful for: whether those Global Gateway projects were already planned before the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership was established, what exactly makes cooperation “low-friction”, and how Global Gateway connects institutionally to Horizon Europe across two different Commission directorates. These were exactly the kinds of questions that make a paper better, and they are ones I am taking back with me to think through properly.

What stays with me most from Prague, more than any single finding in the paper itself, is a clearer sense of how much this work still needs refining. Science and technology cooperation under this Comprehensive Strategic Partnership looks like a genuine, shared priority, but the fuller story of how far that priority is actually being resourced is one I am still working through. That unfinished work is what I am bringing home from this conference.

The post Converging Priorities: Vietnam and the EU in Science and Technology appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Newsletter - 5-8 October 2026 - Strasbourg plenary session

Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

Length of video : 135'

Disclaimer : The interpretation of debates serves to facilitate communication and does not constitute an authentic record of proceedings. Only the original speech or the revised written translation is authentic.
Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

Length of video : 60'

Disclaimer : The interpretation of debates serves to facilitate communication and does not constitute an authentic record of proceedings. Only the original speech or the revised written translation is authentic.
Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

The Council has appointed Col. Vittorio Stingo as the new Head of EUBAM Rafah from 1 November 2026 until 30 June 2027.

Council agrees negotiating position on proposal to accelerate environmental assessments.

Main agenda items, approximate timing, public sessions and press opportunities.

Member States’ representatives appoint a judge to the Court of Justice and two judges to the General Court.

Council sets its position to simplify and streamline food and feed safety requirements.

Council agrees partial negotiating position on the EU support to fisheries, aquaculture and maritime policy for 2028-2034.

The Council has adopted a decision strengthening the EU Space Threat Response Architecture to respond to increased irresponsible and hostile behaviour in the space domain.

The Council imposed restrictive measures on ten Russian individuals responsible for suppressing freedom of expression, access to information, and freedom of association in Russia.

The Council has adopted restrictive measures against a further 10 individuals and 17 entities responsible for the systematic unlawful deportation and forcible transfer of Ukrainian children to the Russian Federation and within temporarily occupied territories.

The Council today adopted an implementing decision setting out the list of the first five European defence projects of common interest under the European Defence Industry Programme.

The Council adopted the second bilateral assistance measure worth €60 million under the EPF to strengthen the operational readiness of the Armed Forces of Cabo Verde.

The Council appointed Christopher Wenzl for Germany and Tanja Frank Eler for Slovenia as prosecutors to the European Public Prosecutor's Office.

The Council has extended the mandates of CSDP civilian missions EUBAM Rafah and EUPOL COPPS for nine months, continuing operations until 30 June 2027.

The Council has adopted the ‘pharma package’, which will make the EU’s pharmaceutical sector fairer and more competitive.

The Council has adopted legislation making social security coordination clearer, fairer and easier to enforce.

Kyriakos Pierrakakis, President of the Eurogroup, is travelling to Basel for a meeting with the Bank of International Settlements and to Frankfurt where he will speak at a Bundesbank conference.