European Parliament 'freezes' EU-China investment deal

On 20 May 2021, the European Parliament announced that it was freezing all consideration of the EU-China Comprehensive Agreement on Investment Agreement until the sanctions on European Parliamentarians are lifted.

The resolution passed with 599 votes in favour states that: “any consideration of CAI & any discussion on ratification by the Parliament have justifiably been frozen because of Chinese sanctions; demands that China lift the sanctions before dealing with CAI, without prejudice to the final outcome of the ratification process.”

It continues to underline that the Parliament will “take the situation in China, incl. in Hong Kong, into account when asked to endorse CAI.”

The Parliament also called for the revocation of European extradition treaties with mainland China and for the European Commission to adopt a package of measures in response to the crisis in Hong Kong.

In the drafting process of the resolution, Hong Kong Watch were pleased to work with parliamentary allies to feed into the drafting process. We strongly welcome this resolution, but now call for CAI to be dropped in its entirety. It is a bad deal which is geopolitically ill-timed, promises more economically than it can possibly deliver, and would send a message that the EU is willing to sell-out its human rights commitments for the sake of trade.