With Nguyen Phu Trong gone, are EU-Vietnam ties at risk?

Vietnam's new leaders, including recently installed President To Lam, have little interest in breaking with Hanoi's tried-and-tested foreign policy of finding a balance between all powers, analysts say.

But their lack of experience in international diplomacy, and their likely escalation of human rights violations, could trigger an overdue debate within Europe about ties with the economically booming but politically repressive one-party state of Vietnam.

Both Brussels and Hanoi are trying to project continuity. Josep Borrell, the EU's outgoing foreign policy chief, traveled to Hanoi last week to attend the state funeral of Nguyen Phu Trong, the communist chief who passed away in late July after an almost unprecedented 12 years in the job.

Borrell's visit demonstrates the "strong relationship" between Brussels and Vietnam, an EU spokesperson told DW.

These relations, the spokesperson added, are "underpinned" by several important agreements, such as the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement, a free trade deal that took effect in 2020, and a Framework Partnership Agreement on peace and security.

The European Commission has also solidified relations through a Just Energy Transition Partnership, a multilateral structure that funds ecological projects in Vietnam.

The EU will "endeavor to further enhance" these partnerships, the spokesperson added.

Diplomatic balancing

Vietnam has one of the fastest-growing economies in Asia. This is helped in good measure by international firms "off-shoring" away from China. EU-Vietnam bilateral trade rose to €64.2 billion ($69.6 billion) last year, according to European Commission data.

Hanoi's strategy depends on balancing its international relationships. Despite being engaged in longstanding and often tense disputes with Beijing over territory in the South China Sea, Vietnam and China enjoy good relations, reflected in the sense of camaraderie between the two ruling communist parties.

At the same time, Vietnam now has markedly improved relations with the West. This month, the Reuters news agency reported that Washington and Hanoi are allegedly in talks over Vietnam purchasing US-made military planes, which would significantly alter Vietnam's defense relations.

"Vietnam's foreign policy is made collectively by the Politburo. Therefore, the rise of the securocrat faction will unlikely affect Vietnam's foreign policy," Le Hong Hiep, a senior fellow at the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute's Vietnam Studies Program in Singapore, told DW.

"Even when To Lam becomes the new party chief, his foreign policy priority will still be maintaining a balance between the major powers and promoting ties with key global actors, including the EU," he added.

Party affairs come first

Nguyen Khac Giang, also of the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute, told DW that political elites in Hanoi would be "focused" on domestic politics in the coming months, so there would unlikely be "any short-term implications on foreign policy with To Lam being the caretaker general secretary."

Trong's death opens up an upcoming leadership transition. To Lam, the president, was assigned to take on the responsibilities of the general secretary, although the Politburo will soon have to vote on whether he formally becomes "acting general secretary."

If he does, that lines him up to become the next party chief when the Communist Party meets at its next National Congress in early 2026, an event where the entire leadership is chosen for the coming five years.

Analysts reckon that To Lam is now probably the favorite for the top job, but he faces stiff competition from Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, a former police chief. Other communist elites will want to make sure that the post-Trong vacuum doesn't lead to an intra-party fight for influence.

Germany's sore spot with To Lam

One concern, however, is To Lam's standing in Europe, especially Germany.

In 2017, a Vietnamese former state firm executive, Trinh Xuan Thanh, who was wanted by the Vietnamese authorities, was kidnapped on the streets of Berlin by the Vietnamese secret service.

Thanh was then forcibly driven to Slovakia where he was transported back to Hanoi in a plane provided by the Slovak government to a visiting delegation led by To Lam, who was minister of public security at the time. There are allegations that To Lam was the mastermind.

German and Slovakian courts have jailed several individuals for the kidnapping, and at the time of the event sparked a spat with Hanoi by expelling several Vietnamese embassy officials.

"Some countries, especially Germany, may feel somewhat uncomfortable dealing with To Lam, but I believe this is no longer a major issue between [them]," Hiep told DW.

In April, just weeks before To Lam became Vietnam's president, the Slovakian government suspended charges against him over his role in Thanh's kidnapping. He now also enjoys diplomatic immunity.

Even so, analysts told DW that To Lam lacks the foreign policy credentials of Trong. Much of the Communist Party's senior leadership, now in the hands of the military and police, are also somewhat lacking in this regard.

To Lam, the public security minister between 2016 and 2021, has made relatively few international visits, and the foreign ministry has been purged over the past year as part of a "blazing furnace" anti-corruption campaign that Trong launched in 2016 and To Lam oversaw.

To Lam does not "particularly care" about human rights, the environment or "any of the things that European politicians think are important," Bill Hayton, associate fellow at Chatham House's Asia-Pacific Programme, told DW.

"What matters to To Lam, and his supporters within Vietnam's security establishment, is maintaining the Communist Party's monopoly over power," Hayton added.

A clash of values

Claudio Francavilla, the associate EU advocacy director at Human Rights Watch, told DW that "To Lam's rise to power is not good news for human rights."

He added: "It means that the Vietnamese government's repression, complete intolerance of criticism, and utter hostility to basic civil and political rights will only intensify."

European criticism of Vietnam's human rights violations "is likely to increase if the regime becomes even more authoritarian," which, in turn, will make the "Vietnamese securocrats more assertive in pushing back at criticism," Alfred Gerstl, an expert on Indo-Pacific international relations at the University of Vienna, told DW.

For now, as Gerstl put it, "the EU is rather cautious in its criticism of human rights violations in Vietnam, especially compared to China."

However, there is growing pressure on the EU to call out Vietnam's leadership for its behavior, especially since the authorities have increasingly targeted environmental activists engaged in EU-backed projects, as DW reported earlier this month.

"The EU should stop giving the Vietnam Communist Party a free pass on human rights abuses," said Francavilla, of Human Rights Watch. "Targeted sanctions and trade pressure are very long overdue."

Edited by: Shamil Shams